SIGHT  UNSEEN  AND 
THE  CONFESSION 

MARY  ROBERTS  RINEHART 


THE  WORKS  OF 

MARY  ROBERTS 
RINEHART 

f/ 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 

and 

THE  CONFESSION 


THE   REVIEW  OF   REVIEWS   COMPANY 

Publishers  NEW  YORK 

PfBUBHCD    BT     AlRAIf OBMBNT     WITH    G*OSG»    H.    DOXIN     COMPACT. 


Copyright, 
By  George  H.  Doran  Company 


Copyright,  1916,  by  The  Ridgway  Company 

Copyright,  1917,  by  The  International  Magazine 
Company 

printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


CONTENTS 


PA  OB 

SIGHT  UNSEEN         .       .       .       .  9 


n 

THE  CONFESSION ...     ,;     ..     .      175 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 


THE  rather  extraordinary  story  revealed  by 
the  experiments  of  the  Neighborhood  Club 
have  been  until  now  a  matter  only  of  private 
record.  But  it  seems  to  me,  as  an  active  partici 
pant  in  the  investigations,  that  they  should  be 
given  to  the  public;  not  so  much  for  what  they 
will  add  to  the  existing  data  on  psychical  re 
search,  for  from  that  angle  they  were  not  un 
usual,  but  as  yet  another  exploration  into  that 
still  uncharted  territory,  the  human  mind. 

The  psycho-analysts  have  taught  us  something 
about  the  individual  mind.  They  have  their  own 
patter,  of  complexes  and  primal  instincts,  of  the 
unconscious,,  which  is  a  sort  of  bonded  warehouse 
from  which  we  clandestinely  withdraw  our  stored 
thoughts  and  impressions.  They  lay  to  this  un- 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 


conscious  mind  of  ours  all  phenomena  that  can 
not  otherwise  be  labeled,  and  ascribe  such  demon 
strations  of  power  as  cannot  thus  be  explained 
to  trickery.,  to  black  silk  threads  and  folding  rods, 
to  slates  with  false  sides  and  a  medium  with  chalk 
on  his  finger  nail. 

In  other  words,  they  give  us  subjective  mind 
but  never  objective  mind.  They  take  the  mind 
and  its  reactions  on  itself  and  on  the  body.  But 
what  about  objective  mind?  Does  it  make  its 
only  outward  manifestations  through  speech  and 
action?  Can  we  ignore  the  effect  of  mind  on 
mind,  when  there  are  present  none  of  the  ordi 
nary  media  of  communication?  I  think  not. 

In  making  the  following  statement  concerning 
our  part  in  the  strange  case  of  Arthur  Wells,  a 
certain  allowance  must  be  made  for  our  ignorance 
of  so-called  psychic  phenomena,  and  also  for  the 
fact  that  since  that  time,  just  before  the  war, 
great  advances  have  been  made  in  scientific 
methods  of  investigation.  For  instance,  we  did 
not  place  Miss  Jeremy's  chair  on  a  scale,  to  meas 
ure  for  any  loss  of  weight.  Also  the  theory  of 
rods  of  invisible  matter  emanating  from  the 
medium's  body,,  to  move  bodies  at  a  distance 
from  her,  had  only  been  evolved;  and  none  of 
the  methods  for  calculation  of  leverages  and 
strains  had  been  formulated,  so  far  as  I  know. 


SIGHT  UNSEEN  11 

To  be  frank,  I  am  quite  convinced  that,  even 
had  we  known  of  these  so-called  explanations, 
which  in  reality  explain  nothing,  we  would  have 
ignored  them  as  we  became  involved  in  the  dra 
matic  movement  of  the  revelations  and  the  per 
sonal  experiences  which  grew  out  of  them.  I 
confess  that  following  the  night  after  the  first 
seance  any  observations  of  mine  would  have  been 
of  no  scientific  value  whatever,  and  I  believe  I 
can  speak  for  the  others  also. 

Of  the  medium  herself  I  can  only  say  that  wre 
have  never  questioned  her  integrity.  The  phys 
ical  phenomena  occurred  before  she  went  into 
trance,  and  during  that  time  her  forearms  were 
rigid.  During  the  deep  trance,  with  which  this 
unusual  record  deals,  she  spoke  in  her  own  voice,, 
but  in  a  querulous  tone,  and  Sperry's  examina 
tion  of  her  pulse  showed  that  it  went  from  eighty 
normal  to  a  hundred  and  twenty  and  very  feeble. 

With  this  preface  I  come  to  the  death  of 
Arthur  Wells,  our  acquaintance  and  neighbor, 
and  the  investigation  into  that  death  by  a  group 
of  six  earnest  people  who  call  themselves  the 
Neighborhood  Club. 

******** 

The  Neighborhood  Club  was  organized  in  my 
house.  It  was  too  small  really  to  be  called  a  club, 
but  women  have  a  way  these  days  of  conferring 


12 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

a  titular  dignity  on  their  activities,  and  it  is  not 
so  bad,  after  all.  The  Neighborhood  Club  it 
really  was,  composed  of  four  of  our  neighbors, 
my  wife,  and  myself. 

We  had  drifted  into  the  habit  of  dining  to 
gether  on  Monday  evenings  at  the  different 
houses.  There  were  Herbert  Robinson  and  his 
sister  Alice — not  a  young  woman,  but  clever, 
alert,  and  very  alive;  Sperry,  the  well-known 
heart  specialist,  a  bachelor  still  in  spite  of  much 
feminine  activity;  and  there  was  old  Mrs.  Dane, 
hopelessly  crippled  as  to  the  knees  with  rheu 
matism,  but  one  of  those  glowing  and  kindly  souls 
that  have  a  way  of  being  a  neighborhood  nucleus. 
It  was  around  her  that  we  first  gathered,  with  an 
idea  of  forming  for  her  certain  contact  points 
with  the  active  life  from  which  she  was  other 
wise  cut  off.  But  she  gave  us,  I  am  sure,  more 
than  we  brought  her,  and,  as  will  be  seen  later, 
her  shrewdness  was  an  important  element  in 
solving  our  mystery. 

In  addition  to  these  four  there  were  my  wife 
and  myself. 

It  had  been  our  policy  to  take  up  different  sub 
jects  for  these  neighborhood  dinners.  Sperry 
was  a  reformer  in  his  way,  and  on  his  nights  we 
generally  took  up  civic  questions.  He  was  par 
ticularly  interested  in  the  responsibility  of  the 


SIGHT  UNSEEN  13 

state  to  the  sick  poor.  My  wife  and  I  had  "po 
litical"  evenings.  Not  really  politics,  except  in 
their  relation  to  life.  I  am  a  lawyer  by  profes 
sion,  and  dabble  a  bit  in  city  government.  The 
Robinsons  had  literature. 

Don't  misunderstand  me.  We  had  no  papers, 
no  set  programs.  On  the  Robinson  evenings  we 
discussed  editorials  and  current  periodicals,  as 
well  as  the  new  books  and  plays.  We  were  fre 
quently  acrimonious,  I  fear,  but  our  small 
wrangles  ended  with  the  evening.  Robinson  was 
the  literary  editor  of  a  paper,  and  his  sister  read 
for  a  large  publishing  house. 

Mrs.  Dane  was  a  free-lance.  "Give  me  that 
privilege/'  she  begged.  "At  least,  until  you  find 
my  evenings  dull.  It  gives  me,  during  all  the 
week  before  you  come,,  a  sort  of  thrilling  feeling 
that  the  world  is  mine  to  choose  from/'  The 
result  was  never  dull.  She  led  us  all  the  way 
from  moving-pictures  to  modern  dress.  She  led 
us  even  further,  as  you  will  see. 

On  consulting  my  note-book  I  find  that  the  first 
evening  which  directly  concerns  the  Arthur 
Wells  case  was  Monday,  November  the  second, 
of  last  year. 

It  was  a  curious  day,  to  begin  with.  There 
come  days,  now  and  then,  that  bring  with  them 
a  strange  sort  of  mental  excitement.  I  have 


14 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

never  analyzed  them.  With  me  on  this  occasion 
it  took  the  form  of  nervous  irritability,  and  some 
thing  of  apprehension.  My  wife,  I  remember, 
complained  of  headache,  and  one  of  the  stenog 
raphers  had  a  fainting  attack. 

I  have  often  wondered  for  how  much  of  what 
happened  to  Arthur  Wells  the  day  was  responsi 
ble.  There  are  days  when  the  world  is  a  place 
for  love  and  play  and  laughter.  And  then  there 
are  sinister  days,,  when  the  earth  is  a  hideous 
place,  when  even  the  thought  of  immortality  is 
unbearable,  and  life  itself  a  burden;  when  all 
that  is  riotous  and  unlawful  comes  forth  and 
bares  itself  to  the  light. 

This  was  such  a  day. 

I  am  fond  of  my  friends,  but  I  found  no 
pleasure  in  the  thought  of  meeting  them  that 
evening.  I  remembered  the  odious  squeak  in  the 
wheels  of  Mrs.  Dane's  chair.  I  resented  the  way 
Sperry  would  clear  his  throat.  I  read  in  the 
morning  paper  Herbert  Robinson's  review  of  a 
book  I  had  liked,  and  disagreed  with  him.  Disa 
greed  violently.  I  wanted  to  call  him  on  the  tele 
phone  and  tell  him  that  he  was  a  fool.  I  felt  old, 
although  I  am  only  fifty-three,  old  and  bitter,  and 
tired. 

With  the  fall  of  twilight,  things  changed  some 
what.  I  was  more  passive.  Wretchedness  en- 


SIGHT  UNSEEN  15 

compassed  me,  but  I  was  not  wretched.  There 
was  violence  in  the  air,  but  I  was  not  violent. 
And  with  a  bath  and  my  dinner  clothes  I  put  away 
the  horrors  of  the  day. 

My  wife  was  better,  but  the  cook  had  given 
notice. 

'There  has  been  quarreling  among  the  serv 
ants  all  day,/*  my  wife  said.  "I  wish  I  could 
go  and  live  on  a  desert  island." 

We  have  no  children,  and  my  wife,  for  lack 
of  other  interests,  finds  her  housekeeping  an  en 
grossing  and  serious  matter.  She  is  in  the  habit 
of  bringing  her  domestic  difficulties  to  me  when 
I  reach  home  in  the  evenings,  a  habit  which  some 
times  renders  me  unjustly  indignant.  Most  un 
justly,  for  she  has  borne  with  me  for  thirty  years 
and  is  known  throughout  the  entire  neighborhood 
as  a  perfect  housekeeper.  I  can  close  my  eyes 
and  find  any  desired  article  in  my  bedroom  at 
any  time. 

We  passed  the  Wellses'  house  on  our  way  to 
Mrs.  Dane's  that  night,  and  my  wife  commented 
on  the  dark  condition  of  the  lower  floor. 

"Even  if  they  are  going  out,"  she  said,  "it 
would  add  to  the  appearance  of  the  street  to  leave 
a  light  or  two  burning.  But  some  people  have 
no  public  feeling." 

I  made  no  comment,  I  believe.     The  Wellses 


16 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

were  a  young  couple,  with  children,  and  had  been 
known  to  observe  that  they  considered  the  neigh 
borhood  "stodgy."  And  we  had  retaliated,  I  re 
gret  to  say,  in  kind,  but  not  with  any  real  unkind- 
ness,  by  regarding  them  as  interlopers.  They 
drove  too  many  cars,  and  drove  them  too  fast; 
they  kept  a  governess  and  didn't  see  enough  of 
their  children;  and  their  English  butler  made 
our  neat  maids  look  commonplace. 

There  is  generally,  in  every  old  neighborhood, 
some  one  house  on  which  is  fixed,  so  to  speak, 
the  community  gaze,  and  in  our  case  it  was  on 
the  Arthur  Wellses'.  It  was  a  curious,  not  un 
friendly  staring,  much  I  daresay  like  that  of  the 
old  robin  who  sees  two  young  wild  canaries  build 
ing  near  her. 

We  passed  the  house,  and  went  on  to  Mrs. 
Dane's. 

She  had  given  us  no  inkling  of  what  we  were 
to  have  that  night,  and  my  wife  conjectured  a 
conjurer !  She  gave  me  rather  a  triumphant  smile 
when  we  were  received  in  the  library  and  the 
doors  into  the  drawing-room  were  seen  to  be 
tightly  closed. 

We  were  early,  as  my  wife  is  a  punctual  per 
son,  and  soon  after  our  arrival  Sperry  came. 
Mrs.  Dane  was  in  her  chair  as  usual,  with  her 
companion  in  attendance,  and  when  she  heard 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 17 

Sperry's  voice  outside  she  excused  herself  and 
was  wheeled  out  to  him,,  and  together  we  heard 
them  go  into  the  drawing-room.  When  the  Rob 
insons  arrived  she  and  Sperry  reappeared,  and 
we  waited  for  her  customary  announcement  of 
the  evening's  program.  When  none  came,  even 
during  the  meal,  I  confess  that  my  curiosity  was 
almost  painful. 

I  think,  looking  back,  that  it  was  Sperry  who 
turned  the  talk  to  the  supernatural,  and  that,  to 
the  accompaniment  of  considerable  gibing  by 
the  men,  he  told  a  ghost  story  that  set  the  women 
to  looking  back  over  their  shoulders  into  the  dark 
corners  beyond  the  zone  of  candle-light.  All  of 
us,  I  remember,  except  Sperry  and  Mrs.  Dane, 
were  skeptical  as  to  the  supernatural,  and  Her 
bert  Robin? on  believed  that  while  there  were  so- 
called  sensitives  who  actually  went  into  trance, 
the  controls  which  took  possession  of  them  were 
buried  personalities  of  their  own,  released  during 
trance  from  the  sub-conscious  mind. 

"If  not,"  he  said  truculently,  "if  they  are  really 
spirits,  why  can't  they  tell  us  what  is  going  on, 
not  in  some  vague  place  where  they  are  always 
happy,  but  here  and  now,  in  the  next  house?  I 
don't  ask  for  prophecy,  but  for  some  evidence  of 
their  knowledge.  Are  the  Germans  getting  ready 


18 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

to  fight  England?  Is  Horace  here  the  gay  dog 
some  of  us  suspect?" 

As  I  am  the  Horace  in  question,  I  must  explain 
that  Herbert  was  merely  being  facetious.  My 
life  is  a  most  orderly  and  decorous  one.  But  my 
wife,  unfortunately,  lacks  a  sense  of  humor,  and 
I  felt  that  the  remark  might  have  been  more 
fortunate. 

"Physical  phenomena !"  scoffed  the  cynic. 
"I've  seen  it  all — objects  moving  without  visible 
hands,  unexplained  currents  of  cold  air,  voice 
through  a  trumpet — I  know  the  whole  rotten 
mess,  and  I've  got  a  book  which  tells  how  to  do 
all  the  tricks.  I'll  bring  it  along  some  night." 

Mrs.  Dane  smiled,  and  the  discussion  was 
dropped  for  a  time.  It  was  during  the  coffee 
and  cigars  that  Mrs.  Dane  made  her  announce 
ment.  As  Alice  Robinson  takes  an  after-dinner 
cigarette,  a  custom  my  wife  greatly  deplores,  the 
ladies  had  remained  with  us  at  the  table. 

"As  a  matter  of  fact,  Herbert,"  she  said,  "we 
intend  to  put  your  skepticism  to  the  test  tonight. 
Doctor  Sperry  has  found  a  medium  for  us,,  a  non- 
professional  and  a  patient  of  his,  and  she  has 
kindly  consented  to  give  us  a  sitting." 

Herbert  wheeled  and  looked  at  Sperry. 

"Hold  up  your  right  hand  and  state  by  your 


SIGHT  UNSEEN  19 

honor  as  a  member  in  good  standing-  that  you 
have  not  primed  her,  Sperry." 

Sperry  held  up  his  hand. 

"Absolutely  not,"  he  said,  gravely.  "She  is 
coming  in  my  car.  She  doesn't  know  to  what 
house  or  whose.  She  knows  none  of  you.  She 
is  a  stranger  to  the  city,  and  she  will  not  even 
recognize  the  neighborhood." 

II 

The  butler  wheeled  out  Mrs.  Dane's  chair,  as 
her  companion  did  not  dine  with  her  on  club 
nights,  and  led  us  to  the  drawing-room  doors. 
There  Sperry  threw  them  open,  and  we  saw  that 
the  room  had  been  completely  metamorphosed. 

Mrs.  Dane's  drawing-room  is  generally  rather 
painful.  Kindly  soul  that  she  is,  she  has  consid 
ered  it  necessary  to  preserve  and  exhibit  there 
the  many  gifts  of  a  long  lifetime.  Photographs 
long  outgrown,  onyx  tables.,  a  clutter  of  odd 
chairs  and  groups  of  discordant  bric-a-brac 
usually  make  the  progress  of  her  chair  through 
it  a  precarious  and  perilous  matter.  We  paused 
in  the  doorway,  startled. 

The  room  had  been  dismantled.  It  opened  be 
fore  us,  walls  and  chimney-piece  bare,  rugs  gone 
from  the  floor,  even  curtains  taken  from  the  win- 


20  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

dows.  To  emphasize  the  change,  in  the  center 
stood  a  common  pine  table,  surrounded  by  seven 
plain  chairs.  All  the  lights  were  out  save  one,  a 
corner  bracket,  which  was  screened  with  a  red- 
paper  shade. 

She  watched  our  faces  with  keen  satisfaction. 
"Such  a  time  I  had  doing  it!"  she  said.  "The 
servants,  of  course,,  think  I  have  gone  mad.  All 
except  Clara.  I  told  her.  She's  a  sensible  girl." 

Herbert  chuckled. 

"Very  neat,"  he  said,  "although  a  chair  or  two 
for  the  spooks  would  have  been  no  more  than 
hospitable.  All  right  Now  bring  on  your 
ghosts." 

My  wife,,  however,  looked  slightly  displeased. 
"As  a  church-woman,"  she  said,  "I  really  feel 
that  it  is  positively  impious  to  bring  back  the  souls 
of  the  departed,  before  they  are  called  from  on 
High." 

"Oh,  rats,"  Herbert  broke  in  rudely.  "They'll 
not  come.  Don't  worry.  And  if  you  hear  raps, 
don't  worry.  It  will  probably  be  the  medium 
cracking  the  joint  of  her  big  toe." 

There  was  still  a  half  hour  until  the  medium's 
arrival.  At  Mrs.  Dane's  direction  we  employed 
it  in  searching  the  room.  It  was  the  ordinary 
rectangular  drawing-room,  occupying  a  corner 
of  the  house.  Two  windows  at  the  end  faced 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 21 

on  the  street,  with  a  patch  of  railed-in  lawn  be 
neath  them.  A  fire-place  with  a  dying  fire  and 
flanked  by  two  other  windows,  occupied  the  long 
side  opposite  the  door  into  the  hall.  These  win 
dows.,  opening  on  a  garden,  were  closed  by  outside 
shutters,  now  bolted.  The  third  side  was  a  blank 
wall,  beyond  which  lay  the  library.  On  the  fourth 
side  were  the  double  doors  into  the  hall. 

As,  although  the  results  we  obtained  were 
far  beyond  any  expectations,  the  purely  physical 
phenomena  were  relatively  insignificant,  it  is  not 
necessary  to  go  further  into  the  detail  of  the 
room.  Robinson  has  done  that,  anyhow,  for  the 
Society  of  Psychical  Research,  a  proceeding  to 
which  I  was  opposed,  as  will  be  understood  by 
the  close  of  the  narrative. 

Further  to  satisfy  Mrs.  Dane,  we  examined  the 
walls  and  floor-boards  carefully,  and  Herbert, 
armed  with  a  candle,  went  down  to  the  cellar  and 
investigated  from  below,  returning  to  announce 
in  a  loud  voice  which  made  us  all  jump  that  it 
seemed  all  clear  enough  down  there.  After  that 
we  sat  and  waited,  and  I  daresay  the  bareness 
and  darkness  of  the  room  put  us  into  excellent 
receptive  condition.  I  know  that  I  myself,  prob 
ably  owing  to  an  astigmatism,  once  or  twice  felt 
that  I  saw  wavering  shadows  in  corners,  and  I 
felt  again  some  of  the  strangeness  I  had  felt  dur- 


22  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

ing  the  day.  We  spoke  in  whispers,  and  Alice 
Robinson  recited  the  history  of  a  haunted  house 
where  she  had  visited  in  England.  But  Herbert 
was  still  cynical.  He  said,  I  remember : 

"Here  we  are,  six  intelligent  persons  of  above 
the  average  grade,  and  in  a  few  minutes  our  hair 
will  be  rising  and  our  pulses  hammering  while  a 
Choctaw  Indian  control,  in  atrocious  English, 
will  tell  us  she  is  happy  and  we  are  happy  and  so 
everybody's  happy.  Hanky  panky !" 

"You  may  be  as  skeptical  as  you  please,  if  you 
will  only  be  fair,  Herbert,"  Mrs.  Dane  said. 

"And  by  that  you  mean — — " 

"During  the  sitting  keep  an  open  mind  and  a 
closed  mouth,"  she  replied,,  cheerfully. 

As  I  said  at  the  beginning,  this  is  not  a  ghost 
story.  Parts  of  it  we  now  understand,  other 
parts  we  do  not.  For  the  physical  phenomena  we 
have  no  adequate  explanation.  They  occurred. 
We  saw  and  heard  them.  For  the  other  part  of 
the  seance  we  have  come  to  a  conclusion  satisfac 
tory  to  ourselves,  a  conclusion  not  reached,  how 
ever,  until  some  of  us  had  gone  through  some 
dangerous  experiences,  and  had  been  brought 
into  contact  with  things  hitherto  outside  the 
orderly  progression  of  our  lives. 

But  at  no  time,  although  incredible  things  hap 
pened,  did  any  one  of  us  glimpse  that  strange 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 23 

world  of  the  spirit  that  seemed  so  often  almost 
within  our  range  of  vision. 

Miss  Jeremy,  the  medium.,  was  due  at  8:30  and 
at  8:20  my  wife  assisted  Mrs.  Dane  into  one  of 
the  straight  chairs  at  the  table,  and  Sperry,  sent 
out  by  her,  returned  with  a  darkish  bundle  in 
his  arms,  and  carrying  a  light  bamboo  rod. 

"Don't  ask  me  what  they  are  for,"  he  said  to 
Herbert's  grin  of  amusement.  "Every  work 
man  has  his  tools." 

Herbert  examined  the  rod,  but  it  was  what  it 
appeared  to  be,  and  nothing  else. 

Some  one  had  started  the  phonograph  in  the 
library,  and  it  was  playing  gloomily,  "Shall  we 
meet  beyond  the  river?"  At  Sperry's  request 
we  stopped  talking  and  composed  ourselves,  and 
Herbert,  I  remember,  took  a  tablet  of  some  sort, 
to  our  intense  annoyance,  and  crunched  it  in  his 
teeth.  Then  Miss  Jeremy  came  in. 

She  was  not  at  all  what  we  had  expected. 
Twenty-six,  I  should  say,  and  in  a  black  dinner 
dress.  She  seemed  like  a  perfectly  normal  young 
woman,  even  attractive  in  a  fragile.,  delicate  way. 
Not  much  personality,  perhaps;  the  very  word 
"medium"  precludes  that.  A  "sensitive,"  I  think 
she  called  herself.  We  were  presented  to  her, 
and  but  for  the  stripped  and  bare  room,  it  might 


24 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

have  been  any  evening  after  any  dinner,  with 
bridge  waiting. 

When  she  shook  hands  with  me  she  looked  at 
me  keenly.  "What  a  strange  day  it  has  been!" 
she  said.  "I  have  been  very  nervous.  I  only 
hope  I  can  do  what  you  want  this  evening." 

"I  am  not  at  all  sure  what  we  do  want,  Miss 
Jeremy,"  I  replied. 

She  smiled  a  qukk  smile  that  was  not  without 
humor.  Somehow  I  had  never  thought  of  a  me 
dium  with  a  sense  of  humor.  I  liked  her  at  once. 
We  all  liked  her,  and  Sperry,  Sperry  the  bachelor, 
the  iconoclast,  the  anti feminist,  was  staring  at 
her  with  curiously  intent  eyes. 

Following  her  entrance  Herbert  had  closed  and 
bolted  the  drawing-room  doors,  and  as  an  added 
precaution  he  now  drew  Mrs.  Dane's  empty 
wheeled  chair  across  them. 

"Anything  that  comes  in,"  he  boasted,  "will 
come  through  the  keyhole  or  down  the  chimney." 
And  then,  eying  the  fireplace,  he  deliberately  took 
a  picture  from  the  wall  and  set  it  on  the  fender. 

Miss  Jeremy  gave  the  room  only  the  most 
casual  of  glances. 

"Where  shall  I  sit?"  she  asked. 

Mrs.  Dane  indicated  her  place,  and  she  asked 
for  a  small  stand  to  be  brought  in  and  placed 
about  two  feet  behind  her  chair,  and  two  chairs 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 25 

to  flank  it,  and  then  to  take  the  black  cloth  from 
the  table  and  hang  it  over  the  bamboo  rod,  which 
was  laid  across  the  backs  of  the  chairs.  Thus 
arranged,  the  curtain  formed  a  low  screen  be 
hind  her,  with  the  stand  beyond  it.  On  this  stand 
we  placed,  at  her  order,  various  articles  from 
our  pockets — I  a  fountain  pen,  Sperry  a  knife; 
and  my  wife  contributed  a  gold  bracelet. 

We  all  felt,  I  fancy,  rather  absurd.  Herbert's 
smile  in  the  dim  light  became  a  grin.  "The  same 
old  thing!"  he  whispered  to  me.  "Watch  her 
closely.  They  do  it  with  a  folding  rod." 

We  arranged  between  us  that  we  were  to  sit 
one  on  each  side  of  her,  and  Sperry  warned  me 
not  to  let  go  of  her  hand  for  a  moment.  "They 
have  a  way  of  switching  hands.,"  he  explained  in 
a  whisper.  "If  she  wants  to  scratch  her  nose  I'll 
scratch  it." 

We  were,  we  discovered,  not  to  touch  the  table, 
but  to  sit  around  it  at  a  distance  of  a  few  inches, 
holding  hands  and  thus  forming  the  circle.  And 
for  twenty  minutes  we  sat  thus,  and  nothing  hap 
pened.  She  was  fully  conscious  and  even  spoke 
once  or  twice,  and  at  last  she  moved  impatiently 
and  told  us  to  put  our  hands  on  the  table. 

I  had  put  my  opened  watch  on  the  table  before 
me,  a  night  watch  with  a  luminous  dial.  At  five 
minutes  after  nine  I  felt  the  top  of  the  table 


26  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

waver  under  my  fingers,  a  curious,  fluid-like 
motion. 

"The  table  is  going  to  move,"  I  said. 

Herbert  laughed,,  a  dry  little  chuckle.  "Sure 
it  is,"  he  said.  "When  we  all  get  to  acting  to 
gether,  it  will  probably  do  considerable  moving. 
I  feel  what  you  feel.  It's  flowing  under  my 
fingers." 

"Blood,"  said  Sperry.  "You  fellows  feel  the 
blood  moving  through  the  ends  of  your  fingers. 
That's  all.  Don't  be  impatient." 

However,  curiously  enough,  the  table  did  not 
move.  Instead,  my  watch,  before  my  eyes,  slid 
to  the  edge  of  the  table  and  dropped  to  the  floor, 
and  almost  instantly  an  object,  which  we  recog 
nized  later  as  Sperry's  knife,,  was  flung  over  the 
curtain  and  struck  the  wall  behind  Mrs.  Dane 
violently. 

One  of  the  women  screamed,  ending  in  a  hys 
terical  giggle.  Then  we  heard  rhythmic  beating 
on  the  top  of  the  stand  behind  the  medium. 
Startling  as  it  was  at  the  beginning,  increasing  as 
it  did  from  a  slow  beat  to  an  incredibly  rapid 
drumming,  when  the  initial  shock  was  over  Her 
bert  commenced  to  gibe. 

"Your  fountain  pen,  Horace,"  he  said  to  me. 
"Making  out  a  statement  for  services  rendered, 
by  its  eagerness." 


SIGHT  UNSEEN  27 

The  answer  to  that  was  the  pen  itself,  aimed  at 
him  with  apparent  accuracy,  and  followed  by  an 
outcry  from  him. 

"Here,  stop  it !"  he  said.  "I've  got  ink  all  over 
me!" 

We  laughed  consumedly.  The  sitting  had 
taken  on  all  the  attributes  of  practical  joking. 
The  table  no  longer  quivered  under  my  hands. 

"Please  be  sure  you  are  holding  my  hands 
tight.  Hold  them  very  tight,"  said  Miss  Jeremy. 
Her  voice  sounded  faint  and  far  away.  Her  head 
was  dropped  forward  on  her  chest,  and  she  sud 
denly  sagged  in  her  chair.  Sperry  broke  the 
circle  and  coming  to  her,  took  her  pulse.  It  was, 
he  reported,  very  rapid. 

"You  can  move  and  talk  now  if  you  like/'  he 
said.  "She's  in  trance,  and  there  will  be  no  more 
physical  demonstrations." 

Mrs.  Dane  was  the  first  to  speak.  I  was  look 
ing  for  my  fountain  pen,  and  Herbert  was  again 
examining  the  stand. 

"I  believe  it  now,"  Mrs.  Dane  said.  '"I  saw 
your  watch  go,  Horace,  but  tomorrow  I  won't 
believe  it  at  all." 

"How  about  your  companion  ?"  I  asked.  "Can 
she  take  shorthand?  We  ought  to  have  a  record." 

"Probably  not  in  the  dark." 

"We  can  have  some  light  now,"  Sperry  said. 


28 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

There  was  a  sort  of  restrained  movement  in 
the  room  now.  Herbert  turned  on  a  bracket  light,, 
and  I  moved  away  the  roller  chair. 

"Go  and  get  Clara,  Horace/'  Mrs.  Dane  said 
to  me,  "and  have  her  bring  a  note-book  and 
pencil/'  Nothing,  I  believe,  happened  during  my 
absence.  Miss  Jeremy  was  sunk  in  her  chair  and 
breathing  heavily  when  I  came  back  with  Clara, 
and  Sperry  was  still  watching  her  pulse.  Sud 
denly  my  wife  said: 

"Why,  look !     She's  wearing  my  bracelet !" 

This  proved  to  be  the  case,  and  was,  I  regret  to 
say,  the  cause  of  a  most  unjust  suspicion  on  my 
wife's  part.  Even  today,  with  all  the  knowledge 
she  possesses,  I  am  certain  that  Mrs.  Johnson  be 
lieves  that  some  mysterious  power  took  my  watch 
and  dragged  it  off  the  table,  and  threw  the  pen, 
but  that  I  myself  under  cover  of  darkness  placed 
her  bracelet  on  Miss  Jeremy's  arm.  I  can  only 
reiterate  here  what  I  have  told  her  many  times, 
that  I  never  touched  the  bracelet  after  it  was 
placed  on  the  stand. 

"Take  down  everything  that  happens,  Clara, 
and  all  we  say,"  Mrs.  Dane  said  in  a  low  tone. 
"Even  if  it  sounds  like  nonsense,  put  it  down." 

It  is  because  Clara  took  her  orders  literally 
that  I  am  making  this  more  readable  version  of 
her  script.  There  was  a  certain  amount  of  non- 


SIGHT  UNSEEN  29 

pertinent  matter  which  would  only  cloud  the 
statement  if  rendered  word  for  word,,  and  also 
certain  scattered,  unrelated  words  with  which 
many  of  the  statements  terminated.  For  in 
stance,  at  the  end  of  the  sentence,  "Just  above 
the  ear/'  came  a  number  of  rhymes  to  the  final 
word,,  "dear,  near,  fear,  rear,  cheer,  three 
cheers."  These  I  have  cut,  for  the  sake  of  clear 
ness. 

For  some  five  minutes,  perhaps,  Miss  Jeremy 
breathed  stertorously,  and  it  was  during  that  in 
terval  that  we  introduced  Clara  and  took  up  our 
positions.  Sperry  sat  near  the  medium  now,  hav 
ing  changed  places  with  Herbert,  and  the  rest  of 
us  were  as  we  had  been,  save  that  we  no  longer 
touched  hands.  Suddenly  Miss  Jeremy  began  to 
breathe  more  quietly,  and  to  move  about  in  her 
chair.  Then  she  sat  upright. 

"Good  evening,  friends,"  she  said.  "I  am  glad 
to  see  you  all  again." 

I  caught  Herbert's  eye,,  and  he  grinned. 

"Good  evening,  little  Bright  Eyes,"  he  said. 
"How's  everything  in  the  happy  hunting  ground 
tonight?" 

"Dark  and  cold,"  she  said,  "Dark  and  cold. 
And  the  knee  hurts.  It's  very  bad.  If  the  key 
is  on  the  nail — Arnica  will  take  the  pain  out." 

She  lapsed  into  silence.  In  transcribing  Clara's 


30  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

record  I  shall  make  no  reference  to  these  pauses, 
which  were  frequent,  and  occasionally  filled  in 
with  extraneous  matter.  For  instance,  once 
there  was  what  amounted  to  five  minutes  of 
Mother  Goose  jingles.  Our  method  was  simply 
one  of  question,  by  one  of  ourselves,  and  of  an 
swer  by  Miss  Jeremy.  These  replies  were  usually 
in  a  querulous  tone,  and  were  often  apparently 
unwilling.  Also  occasionally  there  was  a  bit  of 
vernacular,,  as  in  the  next  reply.  Herbert,  who 
was  still  flippantly  amused,  said : 

"Don't  bother  about  your  knee.  Give  us  some 
local  stuff.  Gossip.  If  you  can." 

"Sure  I  can,  and  it  will  make  your  hair  curl/' 
iThen  suddenly  there  was  a  sort  of  dramatic 
pause  and  then  an  outburst. 

"He's  dead." 

"Who  is  dead?"  Sperry  asked,  with  his  voice 
drawn  a  trifle  thin. 

"A  bullet  just  above  the  ear.  That's  a  bad 
place.  Thank  goodness  there's  not  much  blood. 
Cold  water  will  take  it  out  of  the  carpet.  Not 
hot.  Not  hot.  Do  you  want  to  set  the  stain?" 

"Look  here,"  Sperry  said,  looking  around  the 
table.  "I  don't  like  this.  It's  darned  grisly." 

"Oh,  fudge!"  Herbert  put  in  irreverently. 
"Let  her  rave,  or  it,  or  whatever  it  is.  Do  you 
mean  that  a  man  is  dead?" — to  the  medium. 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 31 

"Yes.  She  has  the  revolver.  She  needn't  cry 
so.  He  was  cruel  to  her.  He  was  a  beast. 
Sullen," 

"Can  you  see  the  woman?"  I  asked. 

"If  it's  sent  out  to  be  cleaned  it  will  cause 
trouble.  Hang  it  in  the  closet." 

Herbert  muttered  something  about  the  movies 
having  nothing  on  us,  and  was  angrily  hushed. 
There  was  something  quite  outside  of  Miss 
Jeremy's  words  that  had  impressed  itself  on  all 
of  us  with  a  sense  of  unexpected  but  very  real 
tragedy.  As  I  look  back  I  believe  it  was  a  sort 
of  desperation  in  her  voice.  But  then  came  one 
of  those  interruptions  which  were  to  annoy  us 
considerably  during  the  series  of  sittings;  she  be 
gan  to  recite  Childe  Harold. 

When  that  was  over, 

"Now  then,"  Sperry  said  in  a  businesslike 
voice,  "you  see  a  dead  man,  and  a  young  woman 
with  him.  Can  you  describe  the  room?" 

"A  small  room,  his  dressing-room.  He  was 
shaving.  There  is  still  lather  on  his  face." 

"And  the  woman  killed  him?" 

"I  don't  know.  Oh,  I  don't  know.  No,  she 
didn't.  He  did  it!" 

"He  did  it  himself?" 

There  was  no  answer  to  that,  but  a  sort  of 
sulky  silence. 


32 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

"Are  you  getting  this,  Clara?"  Mrs.  Dane 
asked  sharply.  "  Don't  miss  a  word.  Who 
knows  what  this  may  develop  into  ?" 

I  looked  at  the  secretary,  and  it  was  clear  that 
she  was  terrified.  I  got  up  and  took  my  chair 
to  her.  Coming  back,  I  picked  up  my  forgotten 
watch  from  the  floor.  It  was  still  going,  and  the 
hands  marked  nine-thirty. 

"Now,"  Sperry  said  in  a  soothing  tone,  "you 
said  there  was  a  shot  fired  and  a  man  was  killed. 
Where  was  this?  What  house?" 

"Two  shots.  One  is  in  the  ceiling  of  the  dress 
ing-room." 

"And  the  other  killed  him?" 

But  here,  instead  of  a  reply  we  got  the  words, 
"library  paste." 

Quite  without  warning  the  medium  groaned, 
and  Sperry  believed  the  trance  was  over. 

"She's   coming  out,"   he   said.     "A   glass   of. 
wine,  somebody."     But  she  did  not  come  out.    In 
stead,  she  twisted  in  the  chair. 

"He's  so  heavy  to  lift,"  she  muttered.  Then : 
"Get  the  lather  off  his  face.  The  lather.  The 
lather." 

She  subsided  into  the  chair  and  began  to 
breathe  with  difficulty.  "I  want  to  go  out.  I 
want  air.  If  I  could  only  go  to  sleep  and  forget 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 33 

it.  The  drawing-room  furniture  is  scattered  over 
the  house." 

This  last  sentence  she  repeated  over  and  over. 
It  got  on  our  nerves,  ragged  already. 

"Can  you  tell  us  about  the  house?" 

There  was  a  distinct  pause.  Then :  "Certainly. 
A  brick  house.  The  servants'  entrance  is  locked, 
but  the  key  is  on  a  nail,  among  the  vines.  All  the 
drawing-room  furniture  is  scattered  through  the 
house." 

"She  must  mean  the  furniture  of  this  room," 
Mrs.  Dane  whispered. 

The  remainder  of  the  sitting  was  chaotic.  The 
secretary's  notes  consist  of  unrelated  words  and 
often  childish  verses.  On  going  over  the  notes 
the  next  day,  when  the  stenographic  record  had 
been  copied  on  a  typewriter,  Sperry  and  I  found 
that  one  word  recurred  frequently.  The  word 


\vas  "curtain." 


Of  the  extraordinary  event  that  followed  the 
breaking  up  of  the  seance,  I  have  the  keenest  rec 
ollection.  Miss  Jeremy  came  out  of  her  trance 
weak  and  looking  extremely  ill,  and  Sperry's  mo 
tor  took  her  home.  She  knew  nothing  of  what 
had  happened,  and  hoped  we  had  been  satisfied. 
By  agreement,  we  did  not  tell  her  what  had  trans 
pired,  and  she  was  not  curious. 

Herbert  saw  her  to  the  car,  and  came  back, 


34 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

looking  grave.  We  were  standing  together  in 
the  center  of  the  dismantled  room,  with  the  lights 
going  full  now. 

"Well/'  he  said,  "it  is  one  of  two  things. 
Either  we've  been  gloriously  faked,  or  we've  been 
let  in  on  a  very  tidy  little  crime." 

It  was  Mrs.  Dane's  custom  to  serve  a  Southern 
eggnog  as  a  sort  of  stir-up-cup — nightcap,  she 
calls  it — on  her  evenings,  and  we  found  it  waiting 
for  us  in  the  library.  In  the  warmth  of  its  open 
fire,  and  the  cheer  of  its  lamps,  even  in  the  dignity 
and  impassiveness  of  the  butler,  there  was  some 
thing  sane  and  wholesome.  The  women  of  the 
party  reacted  quickly,  but  I  looked  over  to  see 
Sperry  at  a  corner  desk,  intently  working  over  a 
small  object  in  the  palm  of  his  hand. 

He  started  when  he  heard  me,  then  laughed 
and  held  out  his  hand. 

"Library  paste !"  he  said.  "It  rolls  into  a  soft, 
malleable  ball.  It  could  quite  easily  be  used  to 
fill  a  small  hole  in  plaster.  The  paper  would 
paste  down  over  it,  too." 

"Then  you  think ?" 

"I'm  not  thinking  at  all.  The  thing  she  de 
scribed  may  have  taken  place  in  Timbuctoo.  May 
have  happened  ten  years  ago.  May  be  the  plot 
of  some  book  she  has  read." 

"On  the  other  hand,"  I  replied,  "it  is  just  pos- 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 35 

sible  that  it  was  here,  in  this  neighborhood,  while 

we  were  sitting  in  that  room." 

"Have  you  any  idea  of  the  time?" 

"I  know  exactly.     It  was  half-past  nine." 


in 

At  midnight,  shortly  after  we  reached  home, 
Sperry  called  me  on  the  phone.  "Be  careful, 
Horace,"  he  said.  "Don't  let  Mrs.  Horace  think 
anything  has  happened.  I  want  to  see  you  at 
once.  Suppose  you  say  I  have  a  patient  in  a  bad 
way,  and  a  will  to  be  drawn." 

I  listened  to  sounds  from  upstairs.  I  heard 
my  wife  go  into  her  room  and  close  the  door. 

"Tell  me  something  about  it,"  I  urged. 

"Just  this.  Arthur  Wells  killed  himself  to 
night,  shot  himself  in  the  head.  I  want  you  to  go 
there  with  me." 

"Arthur  Wells!" 

"Yes.  I  say,  Horace,  did  you  happen  to  no 
tice  the  time  the  seance  began  tonight?" 

"It  was  five  minutes  after  nine  when  my  watch 
fell." 

"Then  it  would  have  been  about  half  past  when 
the  trance  began?" 

"Yes." 


36  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

There  was  a  silence  at  Sperry's  end  of  the  wire. 
Then: 

"He  was  shot  about  9:30,"  he  said,  and  rang 
off. 

I  am  not  ashamed  to  confess  that  my  hands 
shook  as  I  hung  up  the  receiver.  A  brick  house, 
she  had  said ;  the  Wells  house  was  brick.  And  so 
were  all  the  other  houses  on  the  street.  Vines  in 
the  back?  Well,  even  my  own  house  had  vines. 
It  was  absurd ;  it  was  pure  coincidence ;  it  was — 
well,  I  felt  it  was  queer. 

Nevertheless,  as  I  stood  there,  I  wondered  for 
the  first  time  in  a  highly  material  existence, 
whether  there  might  not  be,  after  all,  a  spirit- 
world  surrounding  us,  cognizant  of  all  that  we 
did,  touching  but  intangible,  sentient  but  tuned 
above  our  common  senses? 

I  stood  by  the  prosaic  telephone  instrument  and 
looked  into  the  darkened  recesses  of  the  passage. 
It  seemed  to  my  disordered  nerves  that  back  of 
the  coats  and  wraps  that  hung  on  the  rack,  beyond 
the  heavy  curtains,  in  every  corner,  there  lurked 
vague  and  shadowy  forms,  invisible  when  I 
stared,  but  advancing  a  trifle  from  their  obscurity 
when,  by  turning  my  head  and  looking  ahead,  they 
impinged  on  the  extreme  right  or  left  of  my  field 
of  vision. 

I  was  shocked  by  the  news,,  but  not  greatly 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 37 

grieved.  The  Wellses  had  been  among  us  but 
not  of  us,  as  I  have  said.  They  had  come,  like 
gay  young  comets,  into  our  orderly  constellation, 
trailing  behind  them  their  cars  and  servants,  their 
children  and  governesses  and  rather  riotous 
friends,  and  had  flashed  on  us  in  a  sort  of  bright 
impermanence. 

Of  the  two,  I  myself  had  preferred  Arthur. 
His  faults  were  on  the  surface.  He  drank  hard, 
gambled,,  and  could  not  always  pay  his  gambling 
debts.  But  underneath  it  all  there  had  always 
been  something  boyishly  honest  about  him.  He 
had  played,  it  is  true,  through  most  of  the  thirty 
years  that  now  marked  his  whole  life,  but  he  could 
have  been  made  a  man  by  the  right  woman.  And 
he  had  married  the  wrong  one. 

Of  Elinor  Wells  I  have  only  my  wife's  verdict, 
and  I  have  found  that,  as  is  the  way  with  many 
good  women,  her  judgments  of  her  own  sex  are 
rather  merciless.  A  tall,  handsome  girl,  very 
dark,  my  wife  has  characterized  her  as  cold,  cal 
culating  and  ambitious.  She  has  said  frequently, 
too,  that  Elinor  Wells  was  a  disappointed  woman, 
that  her  marriage,  while  giving  her  social  iden 
tity,  had  disappointed  her  in  a  monetary  way. 
Whether  that  is  true  or  not,  there  was  no  doubt, 
by  the  time  they  had  lived  in  our  neighborhood 


38  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

for  a  year,  that  a  complication  had  arisen  in  the 
shape  of  another  man. 

My  wife,  on  my  return  from  my  office  in  the 
evening,  had  been  quite  likely  to  greet  me  with : 

"Horace,  he  has  been  there  all  afternoon.  I 
really  think  something  should  be  done  about  it." 

"Who  has  been  where?"  I  would  ask,  I  am 
afraid  not  too  patiently. 

"You  know  perfectly  well.  And  I  think  you 
ought  to  tell  him." 

In  spite  of  her  vague  pronouns,  I  understood, 
and  in  a  more  masculine  way  I  shared  her  sense 
of  outrage.  Our  street  has  never  had  a  scandal 
on  it,,  except  the  one  when  the  Berringtons'  music 
teacher  ran  away  with  their  coachman,  in  the 
days  of  carriages.  And  I  am  glad  to  say  that 
that  is  almost  forgotten. 

Nevertheless,,  we  had  realized  for  some  time 
that  the  dreaded  triangle  was  threatening  the 
repute  of  our  quiet  neighborhood,  and  as  I  stood 
by  the  telephone  that  night  I  saw  that  it  had  come. 
More  than  that,  it  seemed  very  probable  that  into 
this  very  triangle  our  peaceful  Neighborhood 
Club  had  been  suddenly  thrust. 

My  wife  accepted  my  excuse  coldly.  She  dis 
likes  intensely  the  occasional  outside  calls  of  my 
profession.  She  merely  observed,  however,  that 
she  would  leave  all  the  lights  on  until  my  return. 


SIGHT  UNSEEN  39 

"I  should  think  you  could  arrange  things  better, 
Horace,"  she  added.  "It's  perfectly  idiotic  the 
way  people  die  at  night.  And  tonight,  of  all 
nights!" 

I  shall  have  to  confess  that  through  all  of  the 
thirty  years  of  our  married  life  my  wife  has 
clung  to  the  belief  that  I  am  a  bit  of  a  dog. 
Thirty  years  of  exemplary  living  have  not  af 
fected  this  conviction,  nor  had  Herbert's  foolish 
remark  earlier  in  the  evening  helped  matters. 
But  she  watched  me  put  on  my  overcoat  without 
further  comment.  When  I  kissed  her  good-night, 
however,  she  turned  her  cheek. 

The  street,  with  its  open  spaces,  was  a  relief 
after  the  dark  hall.  I  started  for  Sperry's  house, 
my  head  bent  against  the  wind,  my  mind  on  the 
news  I  had  just  heard.  Was  it,  I  wondered,  just 
possible  that  we  had  for  some  reason  been  al 
lowed  behind  the  veil  which  covered  poor  Wells' 
last  moments?  And,  to  admit  that  for  a  mo 
ment,  where  would  what  we  had  heard  lead  us  ? 
Sperry  had  said  he  had  killed  himself.  But — 
suppose  he  had  not? 

I  realize  now,  looking  back,  that  my  recollec 
tion  of  the  other  man  in  the  triangle  is  largely 
colored  by  the  fact  that  he  fell  in  the  great  war. 
At  that  time  I  hardly  knew  him,  except  as  a 
wealthy  and  self-made  man  in  his  late  thirties; 


40  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

I  saw  him  now  and  then,  in  the  club  playing  bil 
liards  or  going  in  and  out  of  the  Wells  house,  a 
large,  fastidiously  dressed  man,  strong  featured 
and  broad  shouldered,  with  rather  too  much  man 
ner.  I  remember  particularly  how  I  hated  the 
light  spats  he  affected,  and  the  glaring  yellow 
gloves. 

A  man  who  would  go  straight  for  the  thing 
he  wanted,,  woman  or  power  or  money.  And 
get  it. 

Sperry  was  waiting  on  his  door-step,  and  we 
went  on  to  the  Wells  house.  What  with  the  mag 
nitude  of  the  thing  that  had  happened,  and  our 
mutual  feeling  that  we  were  somehow  involved 
in  it,  we  were  rather  silent.  Sperry  asked  one 
question,  however,  "Are  you  certain  about  the 
time  when  Miss  Jeremy  saw  what  looks  like  this 
thing?" 

"Certainly.  My  watch  fell  at  five  minutes 
after  nine.  When  it  was  all  over,  and  I  picked 
it  up,  it  was  still  going,  and  it  was  9:30." 

He  was  silent  for  a  moment.     Then: 

"The  Wellses'  nursery  governess  telephoned 
for  me  at  9:35.  We  keep  a  record  of  the  time 
of  all  calls." 

Sperry  is  a  heart  specialist,,  I  think  I  have  said, 
with  offices  in  his  house. 

And,  a  block  or  so  farther  on:    "I  suppose  it 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 41 

was  bound  to  come.  To  tell  the  truth,  I  didn't 
think  the  boy  had  the  courage." 

"Then  you  think  he  did  it?" 

"They  say  so/'  he  said  grimly.  And  added, 
irritably:  "Good  heavens,  Horace,  we  must  keep 
that  other  fool  thing  out  of  our  minds." 

"Yes,"  I  agreed.     "We  must." 

Although  the  Wells  house  was  brilliantly 
lighted  when  we  reached  it,  we  had  difficulty  in 
gaining  admission.  Whoever  were  in  the  house 
were  up-stairs.,  and  the  bell  evidently  rang  in  the 
deserted  kitchen  or  a  neighboring  pantry. 

"We  might  try  the  servants'  entrance,"  Sperry 
said.  Then  he  laughed  mirthlessly. 

"We  might  see,"  he  said,  "if  there's  a  key  on 
the  nail  among  the  vines." 

I  confess  to  a  nervous  tightening  of  my  muscles 
as  we  made  our  way  around  the  house.  If  the 
key  was  there,  we  were  on  the  track  of  a  revela 
tion  that  might  revolutionize  much  that  we  had 
held  fundamental  in  science  and  in  our  knowl 
edge  of  life  itself.  If,  sitting  in  Mrs.  Dane's 
quiet  room,  a  woman  could  tell  us  what  was  hap 
pening  in  a  house  a  mile  or  so  away,  it  opened 
up  a  new  earth.  Almos^  a  new  heaven. 

I  stopped  and  touched  Sperry's  arm.  "This 
Miss  Jeremy — did  she  know  Arthur  Wells  or 
Elinor?  If  she  knew  the  house,  and  the  situa- 


42  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

tion  between  them,,  isn't  it  barely  possible  that  she 
anticipated  this  thing?" 

"We  knew  them/'  he  said  gruffly,  "and  what 
ever  we  anticipated,  it  wasn't  this." 

Sperry  had  a  pocket  flash,  and  when  we  found 
the  door  locked  we  proceeded  with  our  search 
for  the  key.  The  porch  had  been  covered  with 
heavy  vines,  now  dead  of  the  November  frosts, 
and  showing,  here  and  there,,  dead  and  dried 
leaves  that  crackled  as  we  touched  them.  In  the 
darkness  something  leaped  against  me,  and  I 
almost  cried  out.  It  was,  however,  only  a  collie 
dog,  eager  for  the  warmth  of  his  place  by  the 
kitchen  fire. 

"Here's  the  key,"  Sperry  said,  and  held  it  out. 
The  flash  wavered  in  his  hand,  and  his  voice  was 
strained. 

"So  far,,  so  good,"  I  replied,  and  was  conscious 
that  my  own  voice  rang  strange  in  my  ears. 

We  admitted  ourselves,  and  the  dog,  bounding 
past  us,  gave  a  sharp  yelp  of  gratitude  and  ran 
into  the  kitchen. 

"Look  here,  Sperry,"  I  said,  as  we  stood  inside 
the  door,  "they  don't  want  me  here.  They've 
sent  for  you,  but  I'm  the  most  casual  sort  of  an 
acquaintance.  I  haven't  any  business  here." 

That  struck  him,  too.     We  had  both  been  so 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 43 

obsessed  with  the  scene  at  Mrs.  Dane's  that  we 
had  not  thought  of  anything  else. 

"Suppose  you  sit  down  in  the  library/'  he  said. 
"The  chances  are  against  her  coming  down,  and 
the  servants  don't  matter." 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  we  learned  later  that  all  the 
servants  were  out  except  the  nursery  governess. 
There  were  two  small  children.  There  was  a 
servants'  ball  somewhere,  and,  with  the  exception 
of  the  butler,  it  was  after  two  before  they  com 
menced  to  straggle  in.  Except  two  plain-clothes 
men  from  the  central  office,  a  physician  who  was 
with  Elinor  in  her  room,  and  the  governess,  there 
was  no  one  else  in  the  house  but  the  children, 
asleep  in  the  nursery. 

As  I  sat  alone  in  the  library,  the  house  was 
perfectly  silent.  But  in  some  strange  fashion 
it  had  apparently  taken  on  the  attributes  of  the 
deed  that  had  preceded  the  silence.  It  was  sin 
ister,  mysterious,  dark.  Its  immediate  effect  on 
my  imagination  was  apprehension — almost  ter 
ror.  Murder  or  suicide,  here  among  the  shadows 
a  soul,  an  indestructible  thing,  had  been  recently 
violently  wrenched  from  its  body.  The  body  lay 
in  the  room  overhead.  But  what  of  the  spirit? 
I  shivered  as  I  thought  that  it  might  even  then 
be  watching  me  with  formless  eyes  from  some 
dark  corner. 


44 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

Overwrought  as  I  was,  I  was  forced  to  bring 
my  common  sense  to  bear  on  the  situation.  Here 
was  a  tragedy,  a  real  and  terrible  one.  Suppose 
we  had,  in  some  queer  fashion,  touched  its  outer 
edges  that  night?  Then  how  was  it  that  there 
had  come,  mixed  up  with  so  much  that  might  be 
pertinent,  such  extraneous  and  grotesque  things 
as  Childe  Harold,  a  hurt  knee,  and  Mother 
Goose  ? 

I  remember  moving  impatiently,  and  trying  to 
argue  myself  into  my  ordinary  logical  state  of 
mind,  but  I  know  now  that  even  then  I  was  won 
dering  whether  Sperry  had  found  a  hole  in  the 
ceiling  upstairs. 

I  wandered,  I  recall,  into  the  realm  of  the  clair 
voyant  and  the  clairaudient.  Under  certain  con 
ditions,  such  as  trance,  I  knew  that  some  individ 
uals  claimed  a  power  of  vision  that  was  super 
normal,  and  I  had  at  one  time  lunched  at  my  club 
with  a  well-dressed  gentleman  in  a  pince  nez  who 
said  the  room  was  full  of  people  I  could  not  see, 
but  who  were  perfectly  distinct  to  him.  He 
claimed,  and  I  certainly  could  not.  refute  him,,  that 
he  saw  further  into  the  violet  of  the  spectrum 
than  the  rest  of  us,  and  seemed  to  consider  it  noth 
ing  unusual  when  an  elderly  woman,  whose  de 
scription  sounded  much  like  my  great-grand 
mother,  came  and  stood  behind  my  chair. 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 45 

I  recall  that  he  said  she  was  stroking  my  hair, 
and  that  following  that  I  had  a  distinctly  creepy 
sensation  along  my  scalp. 

Then  there  were  those  who  claimed  that  in 
trance  the  spirit  of  the  medium,  giving  place  to 
a  control,  was  free  to  roam  whither  it  would,  and, 
although  I  am  not  sure  of  this,  that  it  wandered 
in  the  fourth  dimension.  While  I  am  very  vague 
about  the  fourth  dimension,  I  did  know  that  in 
it  doors  and  walls  were  not  obstacles.  But  as 
they  would  not  be  obstacles  to  a  spirit,  even  in 
the  world  as  we  know  it,  that  got  me  nowhere. 

Suppose  Sperry  came  down  and  said  Arthur 
Wells  had  been  shot  above  the  ear,  and  that  there 
was  a  second  bullet  hole  in  the  ceiling?  Added 
to  the  key  on  the  nail,  a  careless  custom  and 
surely  not  common,,  we  would  have  conclusive 
proof  that  our  medium  had  been  correct.  There 
was  another  point,  too.  Miss  Jeremy  had  said, 
"Get  the  lather  off  his  face." 

That  brought  me  up  with  a  turn.  Would  a 
man  stop  shaving  to  kill  himself  ?  If  he  did,  why 
a  revolver?  Why  not  the  razor  in  his  hand? 

I  knew  from  my  law  experience  that  suicide  is 
either  a  desperate  impulse  or  a  cold-blooded  and 
calculated  finality.  A  man  who  kills  himself 
while  dressing  comes  under  the  former  classifica 
tion,  and  will  usually  seize  the  first  method  at 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 


hand.  But  there  was  something  else,  too.  Shav 
ing  is  an  automatic  process.  It  completes  itself. 
My  wife  has  an  irritated  conviction  that  if  the 
house  caught  fire  while  I  was  in  the  midst  of  the 
process,  I  would  complete  it  and  rinse  the  soap 
from  my  face  before  I  caught  up  the  fire-extin 
guisher. 

Had  he  killed  himself,  or  had  Elinor  killed  him  ? 
Was  she  the  sort  to  sacrifice  herself  to  a  violent 
impulse?  Would  she  choose  the  hard  way,  when 
there  was  the  easy  one  of  the  divorce  court?  I 
thought  not.  And  the  same  was  true  of  Elling- 
ham.  Here  were  two  people,  both  of  them  careful 
of  appearance,  if  not  of  fact.  There  was  another 
possibility,  too.  That  he  had  learned  something 
while  he  was  dressing,  had  attacked  or  threatened 
her  with  a  razor,  and  she  had  killed  him  in  self- 
defence. 

I  had  reached  that  point  when  Sperry  came 
down  the  staircase,  ushering  out  the  detectives 
and  the  medical  man.  He  came  to  the  library 
door  and  stood  looking  at  me,  with  his  face  rather 
paler  than  usual. 

"I'll  take  you  up  now/'  he  said.  "She's  in  her 
room.,  in  bed,  and  she  has  had  an  opiate." 

"Was  he  shot  above  the  ear?" 

"Yes." 

I  did  not  look  at  him,  nor  he  at  me.     We 


SIGHT  UNSEEN  47 

climbed  the  stairs  and  entered  the  room,  where, 
according  to  Elinor's  story,  Arthur  Wells  had 
killed  himself.  It  was  a  dressing-room,  as  Miss 
Jeremy  had  described.  A  wardrobe,  a  table 
with  books  and  magazines  in  disorder,  two  chairs, 
and  a  couch,  constituted  the  furnishings.  Beyond 
was  a  bathroom.  On  a  chair  by  a  window  the 
dead  man's  evening  clothes  were  neatly  laid  out, 
his  shoes  beneath.  His  top  hat  and  folded  gloves 
were  on  the  table. 

Arthur  Wells  lay  on  the  couch.  A  sheet  had 
been  drawn  over  the  body,  and  I  did  not  disturb 
it.  It  gave  the  impression  of  unusual  length  that 
is  always  found,  I  think,  in  the  dead,  and  a  breath 
of  air  from  an  open  window,  by  stirring  the  sheet, 
gave  a  false  appearance  of  life  beneath. 

The  house  was  absolutely  still. 

When  I  glanced  at  Sperry  he  was  staring  at  the 
ceiling,  and  I  followed  his  eyes,  but  there  was  no 
mark  on  it.  Sperry  made  a  little  gesture. 

"It's  queer,"  he  muttered.     "It's " 

"The  detective  and  I  put  him  there.  He  was 
here."  He  showed  a  place  on  the  floor  midway 
of  the  room. 

"Where  was  his  head  lying?"  I  asked,  cau 
tiously. 

"Here." 

I  stooped  and  examined  the  carpet.     It  was 


48  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

a  dark  Oriental,  wkh  much  red  in  it.  I  touched 
the  place,  and  then  ran  my  folded  handkerchief 
over  it.  It  came  up  stained  with  blood. 

"There  would  be  no  object  in  using  cold  water 
there,  so  as  not  to  set  the  stain,"  Sperry  said 
thoughtfully.  "Whether  he  fell  there  or  not,  that 
is  where  she  allowed  him  to  be  found." 

"You  don't  think  he  fell  there?" 

"She  dragged  him,  didn't  she?"  he  demanded. 
Then  the  strangeness  of  what  he  was  saying 
struck  him,  and  he  smiled  foolishly.  "What  I 
mean  is,  the  medium  said  she  did.  I  don't  sup 
pose  any  jury  would  pass  us  tonight  as  entirely 
sane,  Horace,"  he  said. 

He  walked  across  to  the  bathroom  and  sur 
veyed  it  from  the  doorway.  I  followed  him.  It 
was  as  orderly  as  the  other  room.  On  a  glass 
shelf  over  the  wash-stand  were  his  razors,  a 
safety  and,  beside  it,  in  a  black  case,  an  assort 
ment  of  the  long-bladed  variety,  one  for  each  day 
of  the  week,  and  so  marked. 

Sperry  stood  thoughtfully  in  the  doorway. 

"The  servants  are  out,"  he  said.  "According 
to  Elinor's  statement  he  was  dressing  when  he 
did  it.  And  yet  some  one  has  had  a  wild  impulse 
for  tidiness  here,  since  it  happened.  Not  a  towel 
out  of  place!" 

It  was  in  the  bathroom  that  he  told  me  Elinor's 


SIGHT  UNSEEN  49 


story.  According  to  her,  it  was  a  simple  case 
of  suicide.  And  she  was  honest  about  it,  in  her 
own  way.  She  was  shocked,  but  she  was  not 
pretending  any  wild  grief.  She  hadn't  wanted- 
him  to  die,  but  she  had  not  felt  that  they  could 
go  on  much  longer  together.  There  had  been  no 
quarrel  other  than  their  usual  bickering.  They 
had  been  going  to  a  dance  that  night.  The  serv 
ants  had  all  gone  out  immediately  after  dinner 
to  a  servants'  ball  and  the  governess  had  gone 
for  a  walk.  She  was  to  return  at  nine-thirty  to 
fasten  Elinor's  gown  and  to  be  with  the  children. 

Arthur,  she  said,  had  been  depressed  for  sev 
eral  days,  and  at  dinner  had  hardly  spoken  at  all. 
He  had  not,  however,  objected  to  the  dance.  He 
had,  indeed,  seemed  strangely  determined  to  go, 
although  she  had  pleaded  a  headache.  At  nine 
o'clock  he  went  upstairs,  apparently  to  dress. 

She  was  in  her  room,  with  the  door  shut,  when 
she  heard  a  shot.  She  ran  in  and  found  him 
lying  on  the  floor  of  his  dressing-room  with  his 
revolver  behind  him.  The  governess  was  still 
out.  The  shot  had  roused  the  children,  and  they 
had  come  down  from  the  nursery  above.  She 
was  frantic,  but  she  had  to  soothe  them.  The 
governess,  however,  came  in  almost  immediately, 
and  she  had  sent  her  to  the  telephone  to  summon 


50 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

help,  calling  Sperry  first  of  all,  and  then  the 
police. 

"Have  you  seen  the  revolver?"  I  asked. 

"Yes.  It's  all  right,  apparently.  Only  one 
shot  had  been  fired." 

"How  soon  did  they  get  a  doctor?" 

"It  must  have  been  some  time.  They  gave  up 
telephoning,  and  the  governess  went  out,  finally, 
and  found  one." 

"Then,  while  she  was  out ?" 

"Possibly,"  Sperry  said.  "If  we  start  with  the 
hypothesis  that  she  was  lying." 

"If  she  cleaned  up  here  for  any  reason,"  I 
began,  and  commenced  a  desultory  examination 
of  the  room.  Just  why  I  looked  behind  the  bath 
tub  forces  me  to  an  explanation  I  am  somewhat 
loath  to  make,  but  which  will  explain  a  rather 
unusual  proceeding.  For  some  time  my  wife  has 
felt  that  I  smoked  too  heavily,  and  out  of  her  so 
licitude  for  me  has  limited  me  to  one  cigar  after 
dinner.  But  as  I  have  been  a  heavy  smoker  for 
years  I  have  found  this  a  great  hardship,  and 
have  therefore  kept  a  reserve  store,  by  arrange 
ment  with  the  housemaid,  behind  my  tub.  In  self- 
defence  I  must  also  state  that  I  seldom  have  re 
course  to  such  stealthy  measures. 

Believing  then  that  something  might  possibly 
be  hidden  there,  I  made  an  investigation,  and 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 51 

could  see  some  small  objects  lying  there.  Sperry 
brought  me  a  stick  from  the  dressing-room,  and 
with  its  aid  succeeded  in  bringing  out  the  two 
articles  which  were  instrumental  in  starting  us 
on  our  brief  but  adventurous  careers  as  private 
investigators.  One  was  a  leather  razor  strop, 
old  and  stiff  from  disuse,  and  the  other  a  wet 
bath  sponge,  now  stained  with  blood  to  a  yellow 
ish  brown. 

"She  is  lying,  Sperry,"  I  said.  "He  fell  some 
where  else,  and  she  dragged  him  to  where  he  was 
found." 

"But— why?" 

"I  don't  know,"  I  said  impatiently.  "From 
some  place  where  a  man  would  be  unlikely  to 
kill  himself,  I  daresay.  No  one  ever  killed  him 
self,  for  instance,  in  an  open  hallway.  Or 
stopped  shaving  to  do  it." 

"We  have  only  Miss  Jeremy's  word  for  that," 
he  said,  sullenly.  "Confound  it,  Horace,  don't 
let's  bring  in  that  stuff  if  we  can  help  it." 

We  stared  at  each  other,  with  the  strop  and 
the  sponge  between  us.  Suddenly  he  turned  on 
his  heel  and  went  back  into  the  room,  and  a  mo 
ment  later  he  called  me,  quietly. 

"You're  right,"  he  said.  "The  poor  devil  was 
shaving.  He  had  it  half  done.  Come  and  look." 

But  I  did  not  go.     There  was  a  carafe  of  water 


52  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

in  the  bathroom,  and  I  took  a  drink  from  it.  My 
hands  were  shaking.  When  I  turned  around  I 
found  Sperry  in  the  hall,  examining  the  carpet 
with  his  flash  light,  and  now  and  then  stooping 
to  run  his  hand  over  the  floor. 

"Nothing  here,"  he  said  in  a  low  tone,  when  I 
had  joined  him.  "At  least  I  haven't  found  any 
thing." 


IV 

How  much  of  Sperry's  proceeding  with  the  car 
pet  the  governess  had  seen  I  do  not  know.  I 
glanced  up  and  she  was  there,  on  the  staircase  to 
the  third  floor,  watching  us.  I  did  not  know, 
then,  whether  she  recognized  me  or  not,  for  the 
Wellses'  servants  were  as  oblivious  of  the  families 
on  the  street  as  their  employers.  But  she  knew 
Sperry,  and  was  ready  enough  to  talk  to  him. 

"How  is  she  now?"  she  asked. 

"She  is  sleeping,  Mademoiselle." 

"The  children  also." 

She  came  down  the  stairs,  a  lean  young  French 
woman  in  a  dark  dressing  gown,  and  Sperry  sug 
gested  that  she  too  should  have  an  opiate.  She 
seized  at  the  idea,  but  Sperry  did  not  go  down  at 
once  for  his  professional 


SIGHT  UNSEEN  53 

"You  were  not  here  when  it  occurred,  Made 
moiselle?"  he  inquired. 

"No,  doctor.  I  had  been  out  for  a  walk."  She 
clasped  her  hands.  "When  I  came  back " 

"Was  he  still  on  the  floor  of  the  dressing-room 
when  you  came  in?" 

"But  yes.  Of  course.  She  was  alone.  She 
tould  not  lift  him." 

"I  see,"  Sperry  said  thoughtfully.  "No,  I 
daresay  she  couldn't.  Was  the  revolver  on  the 
floor  also?" 

"Yes,  doctor.     I  myself  picked  it  up." 

To  Sperry  she  showed,  I  observed,  a  slight  def 
erence,  but  when  she  glanced  at  me,  as  she  did 
after  each  reply,  I  thought  her  expression  slightly 
altered.  At  the  time  this  puzzled  me,  but  it  was 
explained  when  Sperry  started  down  the  stairs. 

"Monsieur  is  of  the  police?"  she  asked,  with 
a  Frenchwoman's  timid  respect  for  the  constabu 
lary. 

I  hesitated  before  I  answered.  I  am  a  truthful 
man,  and  I  hate  unnecessary  lying.  But  I  ask 
consideration  of  the  circumstances.  Neither  then 
nor  at  any  time  later  was  the  solving  of  the  Wells 
mystery  the  prime  motive  behind  the  course  I  laid 
out  and  consistently  followed.  I  felt  that  we 
might  be  on  the  vevge  of  some  great  psychic  dis 
covery,  one  which  w\>ald  revolutionize  human 


54  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

thought  and  to  a  certain  extent  human  action. 
And  toward  that  end  I  was  prepared  to  go  to  al 
most  any  length. 

"I  am  making  a  few  investigations,"  I  told  her. 
"You  say  Mrs.  Wells  was  alone  in  the  house, 
except  for  her  husband?" 

"The  children." 

"Mr.  Wells  was  shaving,  I  believe,  when  the 
— er — impulse  overtook  him?" 

There  was  no  doubt  as  to  her  surprise.  "Shav 
ing?  I  think  not." 

"What  sort  of  razor  did  he  ordinarily  use?" 

"A  safety  razor  always.  At  least  I  have  never 
seen  any  others  around." 

"There  is  a  case  of  old-fashioned  razors  in  the 
bathroom." 

She  glanced  toward  the  room  and  shrugged  her 
shoulders.  "Possibly  he  used  others.  I  have  not 
seen  any." 

"It  was  you,  I  suppose,  who  cleaned  up  after 
wards." 

"Cleaned  up?" 

"You  who  washed  up  the  stains/' 

"Stains?  Oh,  no,  monsieur.  Nothing  of  the 
sort  has  yet  been  done." 

I  felt  that  she  was  telling  the  truth,  so  far  as 
she  knew  it,  and  I  then  asked  about  the  revol 
ver. 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 55 

"Do  you  know  where  Mr.  Wells  kept  his  re 
volver?" 

"When  I  first  came  it  was  in  the  drawer  of  that 
table.  I  suggested  that  it  be  placed  beyond  the 
children's  reach.  I  do  not  know  where  it  was 
put." 

"Do  you  recall  how  you  left  the  front  door 
when  you  went  out?  I  mean,  was  it  locked?" 

"No.  The  servants  were  out£  and  I  knew  there 
would  be  no  one  to  admit  me.  I  left  it  unfas 
tened." 

But  it  was  evident  that  she  had  broken  a  rule  of 
the  house  by  doing  so,  for  she  added:  "I  am  afraid 
to  use  the  servants'  entrance.  It  is  dark  there." 

"The  key  is  always  hung  on  the  nail  when  they 
are  out?" 

"Yes.  If  any  one  of  them  is  out  it  is  left  there. 
There  is  only  one  key.  The  family  is  out  a  great 
deal,  and  it  saves  bringing  some  one  down  from 
the  servants'  rooms  at  the  top  of  the  house." 

But  I  think  my  knowledge  of  the  key  bothered 
her,  for  some  reason.  And  as  I  read  over  my 
questions,  certainly  they  indicated  a  suspicion  that 
the  situation  was  less  simple  than  it  appeared. 
She  shot  a  quick  glance  at  me. 

"Did  you  examine  the  revolver  when  you  picked 
it  up?" 

"I,  monsieur?     Non!"     Then  her  fears,  what- 


56  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

ever  they  were,  got  the  best  of  her.  "I  know 
nothing  but  what  I  tell  you.  I  was  out.  I  can 
prove  that  that  is  so.  I  went  to  a  pharmacy ;  the 
clerk  will  remember.  I  will  go  with  you,  mon 
sieur,  and  he  will  tell  you  that  I  used  the  tele 
phone  there. " 

I  daresay  my  business  of  cross-examination,  of 
watching  evidence  helped  me  to  my  next  question. 

"You  went  out  to  telephone  when  there  is  a 
telephone  in  the  house  ?" 

But  here  again,  as  once  or  twice  before,  a  veil 
dropped  between  us.  She  avoided  my  eyes, 
"There  are  things  one  does  not  want  the  family 
to  hear/'  she  muttered.  Then,  having  deter 
mined  on  a  course  of  action,  she  followed  it.  "I 
am  looking  for  another  position.  I  do  not  like  it 
here.  The  children  are  spoiled.  I  only  came 
for  a  month's  trial." 

"And  the  pharmacy?" 

"Elliott's,  at  the  corner  of  State  Avenue  and 
McKee  Street." 

I  told  her  that  it  would  not  be  necessary  for 
her  to  go  to  the  pharmacy,  and  she  muttered  some 
thing  about  the  children  and  went  up  the  stairs. 
When  Sperry  came  back  with  the  opiate  she  was 
nowhere  in  sight,  and  he  was  considerably  an 
noyed. 


SIGHT  UNSEEN  57 

"She  knows  something/'  I  told  him.  "She  is 
frightened." 

Sperry  eyed  me  with  a  half  frown. 

"Now  see  here,  Horace/'  he  said,  "suppose  we 
had  come  in  here,  without  the  thought  of  that 
seance  behind  us?  We'd  have  accepted  the 
thing  as  it  appears  to  be,  wouldn't  we?  There 
may  be  a  dozen  explanations  for  that  sponge, 
and  for  the  razor  strop.  What  in  heaven's  name 
has  a  razor  strop  to  do  with  it  anyhow?  One 
bullet  was  fired,  and  the  revolver  has  one  empty 
chamber.  It  may  not  be  the  custom  to  stop  shav 
ing  in  order  to  commit  suicide,  but  that's  no  argu 
ment  that  it  can't  be  done,  and  as  to  the  key — 
how  do  I  know  that  my  own  back  door  key  isn't 
hung  outside  on  a  nail  sometimes?" 

"We  might  look  again  for  that  hole  in  the  ceil- 
ing." 

"I  won't  do  it.  Miss  Jeremy  has  read  of  some 
thing  of  that  sort,  or  heard  of  it,  and  stored  it  in 
her  subconscious  mind." 

But  he  glanced  up  at  the  ceiling  nevertheless, 
and  a  moment  later  had  drawn  up  a  chair  and 
stepped  onto  it,  and  I  did  the  same  thing.  We 
presented,  I  imagine,  rather  a  strange  picture, 
and  I  know  that  the  presence  of  the  rigid  figure 
on  the  couch  gave  me  a  sort  of  ghoulish  feeling. 

The  house  was  an  old  one,  and  in  the  center  of 


58 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

the  high  ceiling  a  plaster  ornament  surrounded 
the  chandelier.  Our  search  gradually  centered 
on  this  ornament,  but  the  chairs  were  low  and 
our  long-distance  examination  revealed  nothing. 
It  was  at  that  time,  too,  that  we  heard  some  one 
in  the  lower  hall,  and  we  had  only  a  moment  to 
put  our  chairs  in  place  before  the  butler  came  in. 
He  showed  no  surprise,  but  stood  looking  at  the 
body  on  the  couch,  his  thin  face  working. 

"I  met  the  detectives  outside,  doctor,"  he  said. 
"It's  a  terrible  thing,  sir,  a  terrible  thing." 

"I'd  keep  the  other  servants  out  of  this  room, 
Hawkins." 

"Yes,  sir."  He  went  over  to  the  sheet,  lifted 
the  edge  slowly,  and  then  replaced  it,  and  tip-toed 
to  the  door.  "The  others  are  not  back  yet.  I'll 
admit  them,  and  get  them  up  quietly.  How  is 
Mrs.  Wells?" 

"Sleeping,"  Sperry  said  briefly,  and  Hawkins 
went  out. 

I  realize  now  that  Sperry  was — I  am  sure  he 
will  forgive  this — in  a  state  of  nerves  that  night. 
For  example,  he  returned  only  an  impatient  silence 
to  my  doubt  as  to  whether  Hawkins  had  really 
only  just  returned  and  he  quite  missed  something 
downstairs  which  I  later  proved  to  have  an  im 
portant  bearing  on  the  case.  This  was  when  we 
were  going  out,  and  after  Hawkins  had  opened 


SIGHT  UNSEEN  59 

the  front  door  for  us.  It  had  been  freezing  hard, 
and  Sperry.,  who  has  a  bad  ankle,  looked  about 
for  a  walking  stick.  He  found  one,  and  I  saw 
Hawkins  take  a  swift  step  forward,  and  then  stop, 
with  no  expression  whatever  in  his  face. 

"This  will  answer,  Hawkins." 

"Yes,  sir,"  said  Hawkins  impassively. 

And  if  I  realize  that  Sperry  was  nervous  that 
night,  I  also  realize  that  he  was  fighting  a  battle 
quite  his  own,  and  with  its  personal  problems. 

"She's  got  to  quit  this  sort  of  thing,"  he  said 
savagely  and  apropos  of  nothing,  as  we  walked 
along.  "It's  hard  on  her,  and  besides " 

"Yes?" 

"She  couldn't  have  learned  about  it,"  he  said, 
following  his  own  trail  of  thought.  "My  car 
brought  her  from  her  home  to  the  house-door. 
She  was  brought  in  to  us  at  once.  But  don't 
you  see  that  if  there  are  other  developments,  to 
prove  her  statements  she — well,  she's  as  innocent 
as  a  child,,  but  take  Herbert,  for  instance.  Do 
you  suppose  he'll  believe  she  had  no  outside  infor 
mation?" 

"But  it  was  happening  while  we  were  shut  in 
the  drawing-room." 

"So  Elinor  claims.  But  if  there  was  anything 
to  hide,  it  would  have  taken  time.  An  hour  or 


60  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

so,  perhaps.  You  can  see  how  Herbert  would 
jump  on  that." 

We  went  back,  I  remember,  to  speaking  of  the 
seance  itself,  and  to  the  safer  subject  of  the  phys 
ical  phenomena.  As  I  have  said,  we  did  not  then 
know  of  those  experimenters  who  claim  that  the 
medium  can  evoke  so-called  rods  of  energy,  and 
that  by  its  means  the  invisible  "controls"  can  per 
form  their  strange  feats  of  levitation  and  the 
movement  of  solid  bodies.  Sperry  touched  very 
lightly  on  the  spirit  side. 

"At  least  it  would  mean  activity,"  he  said. 
"The  thought  of  an  inert  eternity  is  not  bearable." 

He  was  inclined,  however,  to  believe  that  there 
were  laws  of  which  we  were  still  in  ignorance, 
and  that  we  might  some  day  find  and  use  the 
fourth  dimension.  He  seemed  to  be  able  to  grasp 
it  quite  clearly.  "The  cube  of  the  cube,  or  hyper- 
cube,,"  he  explained.  "Or  get  it  this  way:  a  cone 
passed  apex-downward  through  a  plane." 

"I  know,"  I  said,  "that  it  is  perfectly  simple. 
But  homehow  it  just  sounds  like  words  to  me." 

"It's  perfectly  clear,  Horace,"  he  insisted.  "But 
remember  this  when  you  try  to  work  it  out;  it 
is  necessary  to  use  motion  as  a  translator  of  time 
into  space,  or  of  space  into  time." 

"I  don't  intend  to  work  it  out,"  I  said  irritably. 
"But  I  mean  to  use  motion  as  a  translator  of  the 


SIGHT  UNSEEN  61 

time,  which  is  1 130  in  the  morning1,  to  take  me 
to  a  certain  space,  which  is  where  I  live." 

But  as  it  happened,  I  did  not  go  into  my  house 
when  I  reached  it.  I  was  wide  awake,  and  I  per 
ceived,  on  looking  up  at  my  wife's  windows,  that 
the  lights  were  out.  As  it  is  her  custom  to  wait 
up  for  me  on  those  rare  occasions  when  I  spend 
an  evening  away  from  home,  I  surmised  that  she 
was  comfortably  asleep,  and  made  my  way  to  the 
pharmacy  to  which  the  Wellses'  governess  had 
referred. 

The  night-clerk  was  in  the  prescription-room 
behind  the  shop.  He  had  fixed  himself  comfort 
ably  on  two  chairs,  with  an  old  table-cover  over 
his  knee  and  a  half-empty  bottle  of  sarsaparilla 
on  a  wooden  box  beside  him.  He  did  not  waken 
until  I  spoke  to  him. 

"Sorry  to  rouse  you,  Jim,"  I  said. 

He  flung  off  the  cover  and  jumped  up,  upsetting" 
the  bottle,  which  trickled  a  stale  stream  to  the 
floor.  "Oh,  that's  all  right,  Mr.  Johnson,  I  wasn't 
asleep,  anyhow." 

I  let  that  go,  and  went  at  once  to  the  object 
of  our  visit.  Yes,  he  remembered  the  governess, 
knew  her,  as  a  matter  of  fact.  The  Wellses' 
bought  a  good  many  things  there.  Asked  as  to 
her  telephoning,  he  thought  it  was  about  nine 


62  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

o'clock,  maybe  earlier.  But  questioned  as  to  what 
she  had  telephoned  about,  he  drew  himself  up. 

"Oh,  see  here/'  he  said.  "I  can't  very  well  tell 
you  that,  can  I?  This  business  has  got  ethics, 
all  sorts  of  ethics." 

He  enlarged  on  that.  The  secrets  of  the  city, 
he  maintained  loftily,  were  in  the  hands  of  the 
pharmacies.  It  was  a  trust  that  they  kept. 
"Every  trouble  from  dope  to  drink,  and  then 
some/'  he  boasted. 

When  I  told  him  that  Arthur  Wells  was  dead 
his  jaw  dropped,  but  there  was  no  more  argu 
ment  in  him.  He  knew  very  well  the  number  the 
governess  had  called. 

"She's  done  it  several  times/'  he  said.  "I'll  be 
frank  with  you.  I  got  curious  after  the  third 
evening,  and  called  it  myself.  You  know  the 
trick.  I  found  out  it  was  the  Ellingham  house, 
up  State  Street." 

"What  was  the  nature  of  the  conversations?" 

"Oh,  she  was  very  careful.  It's  an  open  phone 
and  any  one  could  hear  her.  Once  she  said  some 
body  was  not  to  come.  Another  time  she  just  said, 
This  is  Suzanne  Gautier.  9:30,  please/  " 

"And  tonight?" 

"That  the  family  was  going  out — not  to  call." 

When  I  told  him  it  was  a  case  of  suicide,  his 
jaw  dropped. 


SIGHT  UNSEEN  63 

"Can  you  beat  it  ?"  he  said.  "I  ask  you,  can  you 
beat  it?  A  fellow  who  had  everything!" 

But  he  was  philosophical,  too. 

"A  lot  of  people  get  the  bug  once  in  a  while," 
he  said.  "They  come  in  here  for  a  dose  of  sudden 
death,  and  it  takes  watching.  You'd  be  surprised 
the  number  of  things  that  will  do  the  trick  if 
you  take  enough.  I  don't  know.  If  things  get  to 
breaking  wrong " 

His  voice  trailed  off,  and  he  kicked  at  the  old 
table  cover  on  the  floor. 

"It's  a  matter  of  the  point  of  view,"  he  said 
more  cheerfully.  "And  my  point  of  view  just 
now  is  that  this  place  is  darned  cold,  and  so's  the 
street.  You'd  better  have  a  little  something  to 
warm  you  up  before  you  go  out,  Mr.  Johnson." 

I  was  chilled  through,  to  tell  the  truth,  and  al 
though  I  rarely  drink  anything  I  went  back  with 
him  and  took  an  ounce  or  two  of  villainous 
whiskey,  poured  out  of  a  jug  into  a  graduated 
glass.  It  is  with  deep  humiliation  of  spirit  I  re 
cord  that  a  housemaid  coming  into  my  library 
at  seven  o'clock  the  next  morning,  found  me, 
in  top  hat  and  overcoat,  asleep  on  the  library 
couch. 

I  had,  however,  removed  my  collar  and  tie,  and 
my  watch,  carefully  wound,  was  on  the  smoking- 
stand  beside  me. 


64  SIGHT  UNSEEN 


The  death  of  Arthur  Wells  had  taken  place  on 
Monday  evening.  Tuesday  brought  nothing 
new.  The  coroner  was  apparently  satisfied,  and 
on  Wednesday  the  dead  man's  body  was  cre 
mated. 

'Thus  obliterating  all  evidence/'  Sperry  said, 
with  what  I  felt  was  a  note  of  relief. 

But  I  think  the  situation  was  bothering  him, 
and  that  he  hoped  to  discount  in  advance  the  sec 
ond  sitting  by  Miss  Jeremy,  which  Mrs.  Dane  had 
already  arranged  for  the  following  Monday,  for 
on  Wednesday  afternoon,  following  a  conversa 
tion  over  the  telephone,  Sperry  and  I  had  a  private 
sitting  with  Miss  Jeremy  in  Sperry's  private  office. 
I  took  my  wife  into  our  confidence  and  invited  her 
to  be  present,  but  the  unfortunate  coldness  fol 
lowing  the  housemaid's  discovery  of  me  asleep 
in  the  library  on  the  morning  after  the  murder, 
was  still  noticeable  and  she  refused. 

The  sitting,  however,  was  totally  without  value. 
There  was  difficulty  on  the  medium's  part  in  se 
curing  the  trance  condition,  and  she  broke  out 
once  rather  petulantly,  with  the  remark  that  we 
were  interfering  with  her  in  some  way. 

I  noticed  that  Sperry  had  placed  Arthur  Wells's 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 65 

stick  unobtrusively  on  his  table,  but  we  secured 
only  rambling  and  non-pertinent  replies  to  our 
questions,  and  whether  it  was  because  I  knew  that 
outside  it  was  broad  day,  or  because  the  Wells 
matter  did  not  come  up  at  all  I  found  a  total  lack 
of  that  sense  of  the  unknown  which  made  all  the 
evening  sittings  so  grisly. 

I  am  sure  she  knew  we  had  wanted  something, 
and  that  she  had  failed  to  give  it  to  us,  for  when 
she  came  out  she  was  depressed  and  in  a  state  of 
lowered  vitality. 

"I'm  afraid  I'm  not  helping  you,"  she  said. 
"I'm  a  little  tired,  I  think." 

She  was  tired.  I  felt  suddenly  very  sorry  for 
her.  She  was  so  pretty  and  so  young — only 
twenty-six  or  thereabouts — to  be  in  the  grip  of 
forces  so  relentless.  Sperry  sent  her  home  in  his 
car,  and  took  to  pacing  the  floor  of  his  office. 

"I'm  going  to  give  it  up,  Horace,"  he  said. 
"Perhaps  you  are  right.  We  may  be  on  the  verge 
of  some  real  discovery.  But  while  I'm  interested, 
so  interested  that  it  interferes  with  my  work,  I'm 
frankly  afraid  to  go  on.  There  are  several 
reasons." 

I  argued  with  him.  There  could  be  no  question 
that  if  things  were  left  as  they  were,  a  number 
of  people  would  go  through  life  convinced  that 
Elinor  Wells  had  murdered  her  husband.  Look 


66 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

at  the  situation.  She  had  sent  out  all  the  servants 
and  the  governess,  surely  an  unusual  thing  in  an 
establishment  of  that  sort.  And  Miss  Jeremy 
had  been  vindicated  in  three  points ;  some  stains 
had  certainly  been  washed  up,  we  had  found  the 
key  where  she  had  stated  it  to  be,  and  Arthur 
had  certainly  been  shaving  himself. 

"In  other  words,"  I  argued,  "we  can't  stop, 
Sperry.  You  can't  stop.  But  my  idea  would  be 
that  our  investigations  be  purely  scientific  and  not 
criminal." 

"Also,  in  other  words/'  he  said,  "you  think 
we  will  discover  something,  so  you  suggest  that 
we  compound  a  felony  and  keep  it  to  ourselves !" 

"Exactly,"  I  said  drily.  .  .  . 

It  is  of  course  possible  that  my  nerves  were 
somewhat  unstrung  during  the  days  that  fol 
lowed.  I  wakened  one  night  to  a  terrific  thump 
which  shook  my  bed,  and  which  seemed  to  be  the 
result  of  some  one  having  struck  the  foot-board 
with  a  plank.  Immediately  following  this  came 
a  sharp  knocking  on  the  antique  bed-warmer 
which  hangs  beside  my  fireplace.  When  I  had 
sufficiently  recovered  my  self-control  I  turned 
on  my  bedside  lamp,  but  the  room  was  empty. 

Again  I  wakened  with  a  feeling  of  intense  cold. 
I  was  frozen  with  it,  and  curiously  enough  it  was 
an  inner  cold.  It  seemed  to  have  nothing  to 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 67 

do  with  the  surface  of  my  body.  I  have  no  ex 
planation  to  make  of  these  phenomena.  Like  the 
occurrences  at  the  seance,  they  were,  and  that 
was  all. 

But  on  Thursday  night  of  that  week  my  wife 
came  into  my  bedroom,  and  stated  flatly  that 
there  were  burglars  in  the  house. 

Now  it  has  been  my  contention  always  that  if  a 
burglar  gains  entrance,  he  should  be  allowed  to 
take  what  he  wants.  Silver  can  be  replaced,  but 
as  I  said  to  my  wife  then,  Horace  Johnson  could 
not.  But  she  had  recently  acquired  a  tea  set 
formerly  belonging  to  her  great-grandmother, 
and  apprehension  regarding  it  made  her,  for  the 
nonce,  less  solicitous  for  me  than  usual. 

"Either  you  go  or  I  go,"  she  said.  "Where's 
your  revolver?" 

I  got  out  of  bed  at  that,  and  went  down  the 
stairs.  But  I  must  confess  that  I  felt,  the  mo 
ment  darkness  surrounded  me,  considerably  less 
trepidation  concerning  the  possible  burglar  than 
I  felt  as  to  the  darkness  itself.  Mrs.  Johnson 
had  locked  herself  in  my  bedroom,  and  there  was 
something  horrible  in  the  black  depths  of  the 
lower  hall. 

We  are  old-fashioned  people,  and  have  not  yet 
adopted  electric  light.  I  carried  a  box  of 
matches,  but  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs  the  one  I  had 


68  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

lighted  went  out.  I  was  terrified.  I  tried  to 
light  another  match,  but  there  was  a  draft  from 
somewhere,  and  it  too  was  extinguished  before 
I  had  had  time  to  glance  about.  I  was  immedi 
ately  conscious  of  a  sort  of  soft  movement  around 
me,  as  of  shadowy  shapes  that  passed  and  re- 
passed.  Once  it  seemed  to  me  that  a  hand  was 
laid  on  my  shoulder  and  was  not  lifted,  but  instead 
dissolved  into  the  other  shadows  around.  The 
sudden  striking  of  the  clock  on  the  stair  landing 
completed  my  demoralization.  I  turned  and  fled 
upstairs,  pursued,  to  my  agonized  nerves,  by 
ghostly  hands  that  came  toward  me  from  between 
the  spindles  of  the  stair-rail. 

At  dawn  I  went  downstairs  again,  heartily 
ashamed  of  myself.  I  found  that  a  door  to  the 
basement  had  been  left  open,  and  that  the  soft 
movement  had  probably  been  my  overcoat,  sway 
ing  in  the  draft. 

Probably.  I  was  not  certain.  Indeed,  I  was 
certain  of  nothing  during  those  strange  days. 
I  had  built  up  for  myself  a  universe  upheld  by 
certain  laws,  of  day  and  night,  of  food  and  sleep 
and  movement,  of  three  dimensions  of  space. 
And  now,  it  seemed  to  me,  I  had  stood  all  my  life 
but  on  the  threshold,  and,  for  an  hour  or  so,  the 
door  had  opened. 

Sperry  had,  I  believe,  told  Herbert  Robinson  of 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 69 

what  we  had  discovered,  but  nothing  had  been 
said  to  the  women.  I  knew  through  my  wife  that 
they  were  wildly  curious,  and  the  night  of  the 
second  seance  Mrs.  Dane  drew  me  aside  and  I 
saw  that  she  suspected,  without  knowing,  that 
we  had  been  endeavoring  to  check  up  our  revela 
tions  with  the  facts. 

"I  want  you  to  promise  me  one  thing,"  she  said. 
'Til  not  bother  you  now.  But  I'm  an  old  woman, 
with  not  much  more  of  life  to  be  influenced  by 
any  disclosures.  When  this  thing  is  over,  and 
you  have  come  to  a  conclusion — I'll  not  put  it  that 
way:  you  may  not  come  to  a  conclusion — but 
when  it  is  over,  I  want  you  to  tell  me  the  whole 
story.  Will  you?" 

I  promised  that  I  would. 

Miss  Jeremy  did  not  come  to  dinner.  She  never 
ate  before  a  seance.  And  although  we  tried  to 
keep  the  conversational  ball  floating  airily,  there 
was  not  the  usual  effervescence  of  the  Neighbor 
hood  Club  dinners.  One  and  all,  we  were  wait 
ing,  we  knew  not  for  what. 

I  am  sorry  to  record  that  there  were  no  physi 
cal  phenomena  of  any  sort  at  this  second  seance. 
The  room  was  arranged  as  it  had  been  at  the  first 
sitting,  except  that  a  table  with  a  candle  and  a 
chair  had  been  placed  behind  a  screen  for  Mrs. 
Dane's  secretary. 


70  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

There  was  one  other  change.  Sperry  had 
brought  the  walking-stick  he  had  taken  from 
Arthur  Wells's  room,  and  after  the  medium  was 
in  trance  he  placed  it  on  the  table  before  her. 

The  first  questions  were  disappointing  in 
results.  Asked  about  the  stick,  there  was  only 
silence.  When,  however,  Sperry  went  back  to 
the  sitting  of  the  week  before,  and  referred  to 
questions  and  answers  at  that  time,  the  medium 
seemed  uneasy.  Her  hand,  held  under  mine, 
made  an  effort  to  free  itself,,  and,  released, 
touched  the  cane.  She  lifted  it,  and  struck  the 
table  a  hard  blow  with  it. 

"Do  you  know  to  whom  that  stick  belongs  ?" 

A  silence.    Then:     "Yes." 

"Will  you  tell  us  what  you  know  about  it?" 

"It  is  writing." 

"Writing?" 

"It  was  writing,  but  the  water  washed  it 
away." 

Then,  instantly  and  with  great  rapidity,  fol 
lowed  a  wild  torrent  of  words  and  incomplete 
sentences.  It  is  inarticulate,  and  the  secretary 
made  no  record  of  it.  As  I  recall,  however,  it 
was  about  water,  children,  and  the  words  "ten 
o'clock"  repeated  several  times. 

"Do  you  mean  that  something  happened  at  ten 
o'clock?" 


SIGHT  UNSEEN  71 

"No.  Certainly  not.  No,  indeed.  The  water 
washed  it  away.  All  of  it.  Not  a  trace." 

"Where  did  all  this  happen?" 

She  named,  without  hesitation,  a  seaside  resort 
about  fifty  miles  from  our  city.  There  was  not 
one  of  us,  I  dare  say,  who  did  not  know  that  the 
Wellses  had  spent  the  preceding  summer  there 
and  that  Charlie  Ellingham  had  been  there,  also. 

"Do  you  know  that  Arthur  Wells  is  dead?" 

"Yes.    He  is  dead." 

"Did  he  kill  himself?" 

"You  can't  catch  me  on  that.    I  don't  know." 

Here  the  medium  laughed.  It  was  horrible. 
And  the  laughter  made  the  whole  thing  absurd. 
But  it  died  away  quickly. 

"If  only  the  pocketbook  was  not  lost,"  she  said. 
"There  were  so  many  things  in  it.  Especially 
car-tickets.  Walking  is  a  nuisance." 

Mrs.  Dane's  secretary  suddenly  spoke.  "Do 
you  want  me  to  take  things  like  that?"  she  asked. 

"Take  everything,  please,"  was  the  answer. 

"Car-tickets  and  letters.  It  will  be  terrible  if 
the  letters  are  found." 

"Where  was  the  pocketbook  lost?"  Sperry 
asked. 

"If  that  were  known,  it  could  be  found,"  was 
the  reply,  rather  sharply  given.  "Hawkins  may 


72 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

have  it.  He  was  always  hanging  around.  The 
curtain  was  much  safer." 

"What  curtain  ?" 

"Nobody  would  have  thought  of  the  curtain. 
First  ideas  are  best." 

She  repeated  this,  following  it,  as  once  before, 
with  rhymes  for  the  final  word,  best,  rest,,  chest, 
pest. 

"Pest!"  she  said.  "That's  Hawkins!"  And 
again  the  laughter. 

"Did  one  of  the  bullets  strike  the  ceiling?" 

"Yes.  But  you'll  never  find  it.  It  is  holding 
well.  That  part's  safe  enough — unless  it  made 
a  hole  in  the  floor  above." 

"But  there  was  only  one  empty  chamber  in 
the  revolver.  How  could  two  shots  have  been 
fired?" 

There  was  no  answer  at  all  to  this.  And 
Sperry,  after  waiting,  went  on  to  his  next  ques 
tion:  "Who  occupied  the  room  overhead?" 

But  here  we  received  the  reply  to  the  previous 
question:  "There  was  a  box  of  cartridges  in  the 
table-drawer.  That's  easy." 

From  that  point,  however,  the  interest  lapsed. 
Either  there  was  no  answer  to  questions,  or  we 
got  the  absurdity  that  we  had  encountered  before., 
about  the  drawing-room  furniture.  But,  unsat 
isfactory  in  many  ways  as  the  seance  had  been, 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 73 

the  effect  on  Miss  Jeremy  was  profound — she 
was  longer  in  coming-  out,  and  greatly  exhausted 
when  it  was  all  over. 

She  refused  to  take  the  supper  Mrs.  Dane  had 
prepared  for  her,  and  at  eleven  o'clock  Sperry 
took  her  home  in  his  car. 

I  remember  that  Mrs.  Dane  inquired,  after  she 
had  gone. 

"Does  any  one  know  the  name  of  the  Wellses' 
butler?  Is  it  Hawkins?" 

I  said  nothing,  and  as  Sperry  was  the  only  one 
likely  to  know  and  he  had  gone,  the  inquiry  went 
no  further.  Looking  back,,  I  realize  that  Herbert, 
while  less  cynical,  was  still  skeptical,  that  his  sis 
ter  was  non-committal,  but  for  some  reason 
watching  me,  and  that  Mrs.  Dane  was  in  a  state 
or  delightful  anticipation. 

My  wife,  however,  had  taken  a  dislike  to  Miss 
Jeremy,  and  said  that  the  whole  thing  bored  her. 

"The  men  like  it,  of  course/'  she  said,  "Horace 
fairly  simpers  with  pleasure  while  he  sits  and 
holds  her  hand.  But  a  woman  doesn't  impose  on 
other  women  so  easily.  It's  silly." 

"My  dear,"  Mrs.  Dane  said,  reaching  over  and 
patting  my  wife's  hand,  "people  talked  that  way 
about  Columbus  and  Galileo.  And  if  it  is  non 
sense.,  it  is  such  thrilling  nonsense !" 


74  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

VI 

I  find  that  the  solution  of  the  Arthur  Wells 
mystery — for  we  did  solve  it — takes  three  divi 
sions  in  my  mind.  Each  one  is  a  sitting,  followed 
by  an  investigation  made  by  Sperry  and  myself. 

But  for  some  reason,  after  Miss  Jeremy's  sec 
ond  sitting,  I  found  that  my  reasoning  mind  was 
stronger  than  my  credulity.  And  as  Sperry  had 
at  that  time  determined  to  have  nothing  more  to 
do  with  the  business,  I  made  a  resolution  to  aban 
don  my  investigations.  Nor  have  I  any  reason  to 
believe  that  I  would  have  altered  my  attitude 
toward  the  case,  had  it  not  been  that  I  saw  in  the 
morning  paper  on  the  Thursday  following  the 
second  seance,  that  Elinor  Wells  had  closed  her 
house,  and  gone  to  Florida. 

I  tried  to  put  the  fact  out  of  my  mind  that 
morning.  After  all,  what  good  would  it  do?  No 
discovery  of  mine  could  bring  Arthur  Wells  back 
to  his  family,  to  his  seat  at  the  bridge  table  at 
the  club,  to  his  too  expensive  cars  and  his  unpaid 
bills.  Or  to  his  wife  who  was  not  grieving  for 
him. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  confess  to  an  overwhelm 
ing  desire  to  examine  again  the  ceiling  of  the 
dressing  room  and  thus  to  check  up  one  degree 


SIGHT  UNSEEN  75 

further  the  accuracy  of  our  revelations.  After 
some  debate,  therefore,  I  called  up  Sperry,  but 
he  flatly  refused  to  go  on  any  further. 

"Miss  Jeremy  has  been  ill  since  Monday,"  he 
said.  "Mrs.  Dane's  rheumatism  is  worse.,  her 
companion  is  nervously  upset,  and  your  own  wife 
called  me  up  an  hour  ago  and  says  you  are  sleep 
ing  with  a  light,  and  she  thinks  you  ought  to  go 
away.  The  whole  club  is  shot  to  pieces." 

But,  although  I  am  a  small  and  not  a  coura 
geous  man,  the  desire  to  examine  the  Wells  house 
clung  to  me  tenaciously.  Suppose  there  were 
cartridges  in  his  table  drawer?  Suppose  I  should 
find  the  second  bullet  hole  in  the  ceiling?  I  no 
longer  deceived  myself  by  any  argument  that  my 
interest  was  purely  scientific.  There  is  a  point 
at  which  curiosity  becomes  unbearable,  when  it 
becomes  an  obsession,  like  hunger.  I  had  reached 
that  point. 

Nevertheless,  I  found  it  hard  to  plan  the  neces 
sary  deception  to  my  wife.  My  habits  have 
always  been  entirely  orderly  and  regular.  My 
wildest  dissipation  was  the  Neighborhood  Club. 
I  could  not  recall  an  evening  away  from  home  in 
years.,  except  on  business.  Yet  now  I  must  have 
a  free  evening,  possibly  an  entire  night. 

In  planning  for  this,  I  forgot  my  nervousness 
for  a  time.  I  decided  finally  to  tell  my  wife  that 


76 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

an  out-of-town  client  wished  to  talk  business  with 
me,  and  that  day,  at  luncheon — I  go  home  to 
luncheon — I  mentioned  that  such  a  client  was  in 
town. 

"It  is  possible,"  I  said,  as  easily  as  I  could, 
"that  we  may  not  get  through  this  afternoon.  If 
things  should  run  over  into  the  evening,  I'll 
telephone." 

She  took  it  calmly  enough,  but  later  on,  as  I 
was  taking  an  electric  flash  from  the  drawer  of 
the  hall  table  and  putting  it  in  my  overcoat 
pocket,  she  came  on  me,  and  I  thought  she  looked 
surprised. 

During  the  afternoon  I  was  beset  with  doubts 
and  uneasiness.  Suppose  she  called  up  my  office 
and  found  that  the  client  I  had  named  was  not  in 
town  ?  It  is  undoubtedly  true  that  a  tangled  web 
we  weave  when  first  we  practise  to  deceive,  for 
on  my  return  to  the  office  I  was  at  once  quite 
certain  that  Mrs.  Johnson  would  telephone  and 
make  the  inquiry. 

After  some  debate  I  called  my  secretary  and 
told  her  to  say,  if  such  a  message  came  in,  that 
Mr.  Forbes  was  in  town  and  that  I  had  an 
appointment  with  him.  As  a  matter  of  fact,,  no 
such  inquiry  came  in,  but  as  Miss  Joyce,  my  sec 
retary,  knew  that  Mr.  Forbes  was  in  Europe,  I 
was  conscious  for  some  months  afterwards  that 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 77 

Miss  Joyce's  eyes  occasionally  rested  on  me  in  a 
speculative  and  suspicious  manner. 

Other  things  also  increased  my  uneasiness  as 
the  day  wore  on.  There  was,  for  instance,  the 
matter  of  the  back  door  to  the  Wells  house. 
Nothing  was  more  unlikely  than  that  the  key 
would  still  be  hanging  there.  I  must,  therefore,, 
get  a  key. 

At  three  o'clock  I  sent  the  office-boy  out  for  a 
back-door  key.  He  looked  so  surprised  that  I 
explained  that  we  had  lost  our  key,  and  that  I 
required  an  assortment  of  keys  of  all  sizes. 

"What  sort  of  key?"  he  demanded,  eyeing  me, 
with  his  feet  apart. 

"Just  an  ordinary  key,"  I  said.  "Not  a  Yale 
key.  Nothing  fancy.  Just  a  plain  back-door 
key."  At  something  after  four  my  wife  called 
up,  in  great  excitement.  A  boy  and  a  man  had 
been  to  the  house  and  had  fitted  an  extra  key  to 
the  back  door,  which  had  two  excellent  ones 
already.  She  was  quite  hysterical,  and  had  sent 
for  the  police,  but  the  officer  had  arrived  after 
they  had  gone. 

"They  are  burglars,  of  course!"  she  said. 
"Burglars  often  have  boys  with  them,  to  go 
through  the  pantry  windows.  I'm  so  nervous  I 
could  scream." 

I  tried  to  tell  her  that  if  the  door  was  unlocked 


78  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

there  was  no  need  to  use  the  pantry  window.,  but 
she  rang  off  quickly  and,  I  thought,  coldly.  Not, 
however,  before  she  had  said  that  my  plan  to 
spend  the  evening  out  was  evidently  known  in 
the  underworld ! 

By  going  through  my  desk  I  found  a  number  of 
keys,  mostly  trunk  keys  and  one  the  key  to  a  dog- 
collar.  But  late  in  the  afternoon  I  visited  a  client 
of  mine  who  is  in  the  hardware  business,  and 
secured  quite  a  selection.  One  of  them  was  a 
skeleton  key.  He  persisted  in  regarding  the 
matter  as  a  joke,  and  poked  me  between  the 
shoulder-blades  as  I  went  out. 

"If  you're  arrested  with  all  that  hardware  on 
you,"  he  said,,  "you'll  be  held  as  a  first-class  bur 
glar.  You  are  equipped  to  open  anything  from 
a  can  of  tomatoes  to  the  missionary  box  in 
church." 

But  I  felt  that  already,  innocent  as  I  was,  I 
was  leaving  a  trail  of  suspicion  behind  me :  Miss 
Joyce  and  the  office  boy,  the  dealer  and  my  wife. 
And  I  had  not  started  yet. 

I  dined  in  a  small  chop-house  where  I  occa 
sionally  lunch,  and  took  a  large  cup  of  strong 
black  coffee.  When  I  went  out  into  the  night 
again  I  found  that  a  heavy  fog  had  settled  down, 
and  I  began  to  feel  again  something  of  the 
strange  and  disturbing  quality  of  the  day  which 


SIGHT  UNSEEN  79 

had  ended  in  Arthur  Wells's  death.  Already  a 
potential  housebreaker,  I  avoided  policemen,  and 
the  very  jingling  of  the  keys  in  my  pocket  sounded 
loud  and  incriminating  to  my  ears. 

The  Wells  house  was  dark.  Even  the  arc- 
lamp  in  the  street  was  shrouded  in  fog.  But  the 
darkness,  which  added  to  my  nervousness,  added 
also  to  my  security. 

I  turned  and  felt  my  way  cautiously  to  the  rear 
of  the  house.  Suddenly  I  remembered  the  dog. 
But  of  course  he  was  gone.  As  I  cautiously 
ascended  the  steps  the  dead  leaves  on  the  vines 
rattled,  as  at  the  light  touch  of  a  hand,  and  I 
was  tempted  to  turn  and  run. 

I  do  not  like  deserted  houses.  Even  in  daylight 
they  have  a  sinister  effect  on  me.  They  seem,  in 
their  empty  spaces,  to  have  held  and  recorded  all 
that  has  happened  in  the  dusty  past.  The  Wells 
house  that  night,  looming  before  me,  silent  and 
mysterious,  seemed  the  embodiment  of  all  the 
deserted  houses  I  had  known.  Its  empty  and 
unshuttered  windows  were  like  blind  eyes,  gazing 
in,  not  out. 

Nevertheless,  now  that  the  time  had  come  a 
certain  amount  of  courage  came  with  it.  I  am 
not  ashamed  to  confess  that  a  certain  part  of  it 
came  from  the  anticipation  of  the  Neighborhood 
Club's  plaudits.  For  Herbert  to  have  made  such 


80  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

an  investigation,  or  even  Sperry,  with  his  height 
and  his  iron  muscles,  would  not  have  surprised 
them.  But  I  was  aware  that  while  they  expected 
intelligence  and  even  humor,  of  a  sort,  from  me, 
they  did  not  anticipate  any  particular  bravery. 

The  flash  was  working,  but  rather  feebly.  I 
found  the  nail  where  the  door-key  had  formerly 
hung,  but  the  key,  as  I  had  expected,  was  gone. 
I  was  less  than  five  minutes,  I  fancy,  in  finding  a 
key  from  my  collection  that  would  fit.  The  bolt 
slid  back  with  a  click,  and  the  door  opened. 

It  was  still  early  in  the  evening,  eight-thirty  or 
thereabouts.  I  tried  to  think  of  that;  to  remem 
ber  that,  only  a  few  blocks  away,  some  of  my 
friends  were  still  dining,  or  making  their  way 
into  theaters.  But  the  silence  of  the  house  came 
out  to  meet  me  on  the  threshold,  and  its  blackness 
enveloped  me  like  a  wave.  It  was  unfortunate, 
too,  that  I  remembered  just  then  that  it  was,  or 
soon  would  be,  the  very  hour  of  young  Wells's 
death. 

Nevertheless,  once  inside  the  house,,  the  door 
to  the  outside  closed  and  facing  two  alternatives, 
to  go  on  with  it  or  to  cut  and  run,  I  found  a  sort 
of  desperate  courage,  clenched  my  teeth,  and  felt 
for  the  nearest  light  switch. 

The  electric  light  had  been  cut  off ! 

I  should  have  expected  it,  but  I  had  not.     I 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 81 

remember  standing  in  the  back  hall  and  debating 
whether  to  go  on  or  to  get  out.  I  was  not  only  in 
a  highly  nervous  state,  but  I  was  also  badly  handi 
capped.  However,  as  the  moments  wore  on  and 
I  stood  there,,  with  the  quiet  unbroken  by  no 
mysterious  sounds,  I  gained  a  certain  confidence. 
After  a  short  period  of  readjustment,  therefore, 
I  felt  my  way  to  the  library  door,  and  into  the 
room.  Once  there,  I  used  the  flash  to  discover 
that  the  windows  were  shuttered,  and  proceeded 
to  take  off  my  hat  and  coat,  which  I  placed  on  a 
chair  near  the  door.  It  was  at  this  time  that  I 
discovered  that  the  battery  of  my  lamp  was  very 
weak,  and  finding  a  candle  in  a  tall  brass  stick  on 
the  mantelpiece,  I  lighted  it. 

Then  I  looked  about.  The  house  had  evidently 
been  hastily  closed.  Some  of  the  furniture  was 
covered  with  sheets,  while  part  of  it  stood  unpro 
tected.  The  rug  had  been  folded  into  the  center 
of  the  room,  and  covered  with  heavy  brown 
papers,  and  I  was  extremely  startled  to  hear  the 
papers  rustling.  A  mouse,  however,  proved  to 
be  the  source  of  the  sound,  and  I  pulled  myself 
together  with  a  jerk. 

It  is  to  be  remembered  that  I  had  left  my  hat 
and  overcoat  on  a  chair  near  the  door.  There 
could  be  no  mistake,  as  the  chair  was  a  light  one., 


82  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

and  the  weight  of  my  overcoat  threw  it  back 
against  the  wall. 

Candle  in  hand,  I  stepped  out  into  the  hall, 
and  was  immediately  met  by  a  crash  which  rever 
berated  through  the  house.  In  my  alarm  my 
teeth  closed  on  the  end  of  my  tongue,  with  agoniz 
ing  results,  but  the  sound  died  away,  and  I  con 
cluded  that  an  upper  window  had  been  left  open, 
and  that  the  rising  wind  had  slammed  a  door. 
But  my  morale,  as  we  say  since  the  war,  had  been 
shaken,  and  I  recklessly  lighted  a  second  candle 
and  placed  it  on  the  table  in  the  hall  at  the  foot 
of  the  staircase,  to  facilitate  my  exit  in  case  I 
desired  to  make  a  hurried  one. 

Then  I  climbed  slowly.  The  fog  had  appar 
ently  made  its  way  into  the  house,  for  when,  half 
way  up,  I  turned  and  looked  down,  the  candle 
light  was  hardly  more  than  a  spark,  surrounded 
by  a  luminous  aura. 

I  do  not  know  exactly  when  I  began  to  feel  that 
I  was  not  alone  in  the  house.  It  was,  I  think, 
when  I  was  on  a  chair  on  top  of  a  table  in 
Arthur's  room,  with  my  candle  upheld  to  the  ceil 
ing.  It  seemed  to  me  that  something  was  moving 
stealthily  in  the  room  overhead.  I  stood  there, 
candle  upheld,  and  every  faculty  I  possessed 
seemed  centered  in  my  ears.  It  was  not  a  foot 
step.  It  was  a  soft  and  dragging  movement. 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 83 

Had  I  not  been  near  the  ceiling  I  should  not  have 
heard  it.  Indeed,  a  moment  later  I  was  not  cer 
tain  that  I  had  heard  it. 

My  chair,  on  top  of  the  table,  was  none  too 
securely  balanced.  I  had  found  what  I  was  look 
ing  for,  a  part  of  the  plaster  ornament  broken 
away,  and  replaced  by  a  whitish  substance,  not 
plaster.  I  got  out  my  penknife  and  cut  away  the 
foreign  matter,  showing  a  small  hole  beneath,  a 
bullet-hole,  if  I  knew  anything  about  bullet-holes. 

Then  I  heard  the  dragging  movement  above, 
and  what  with  alarm  and  my  insecure  position,  I 
suddenly  overbalanced,  chair  and  all.  My  head 
must  have  struck  on  the  corner  of  the  table,  for  I 
was  dazed  for  a  few  moments.  The  candle  had 
gone  out,  of  course.  I  felt  for  the  chair,  righted 
it,  and  sat  down.  I  was  dizzy  and  I  was  fright 
ened.  I  was  afraid  to  move,  lest  the  dragging 
thing  above  come  down  and  creep  over  me  in  the 
darkness  and  smother  me. 

And  sitting  there,  I  remembered  the  very  things 
I  most  wished  to  forget — the  black  curtain  behind 
Miss  Jeremy,  the  things  flung  by  unseen  hands 
into  the  room,,  the  way  my  watch  had  slid  over 
the  table  and  fallen  to  the  floor. 

Since  that  time  I  know  there  is  a  madness  of 
courage,  born  of  terror.  Nothing  could  be  more 
intolerable  than  to  sit  there  and  wait.  It  is  the 


84 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

same  insanity  that  drove  men  out  of  the  trenches 
to  the  charge  and  almost  certain  death,  rather 
than  to  sit  and  wait  for  what  might  come. 

In  a  way,  I  daresay  I  charged  the  upper  floor 
of  the  house.  Recalling  the  situation  from  this 
safe  lapse  of  time,  I  think  that  I  was  in  a  con 
dition  close  to  frenzy.  I  know  that  it  did  not 
occur  to  me  to  leap  down  the  staircase  and  escape, 
and  I  believe  now  this  was  due  to  a  conviction  that 
I  was  dealing  with  the  supernatural,  and  that  on 
no  account  did  I  dare  to  turn  my  back  on  it.  All 
children  and  some  adults,  I  am  sure,  have  known 
this  feeling. 

Whatever  drove  me,,  I  know  that,  candle  in 
hand,  and  hardly  sane,  I  ran  up  the  staircase, 
and  into  the  room  overhead.  It  was  empty. 

As  suddenly  as  my  sanity  had  gone,  it  returned 
to  me.  The  sight  of  two  small  beds,  side  by  side, 
a  tiny  dressing-table,  a  row  of  toys  on  the  mantel 
piece,  was  calming.  Here  was  the  children's 
night  nursery,  a  white  and  placid  room  which 
could  house  nothing  hideous. 

I  was  humiliated  and  ashamed.  I,  Horace 
Johnson,  a  man  of  dignity  and  reputation,  even 
in  a  small  way,  a  successful  after-dinner  speaker, 
numbering  fifty-odd  years  of  logical  living  to* my 
credit,  had  been  running  half -maddened  toward 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 85 

a  mythical  danger  from  which  I  had  been  afraid 
to  run  away ! 

I  sat  down  and  mopped  my  face  with  my  pocket 
handkerchief. 

After  a  time  I  got  up,  and  going  to  a  window 
looked  down  at  the  quiet  world  below.  The  fog 
was  lifting.  Automobiles  were  making  cautious 
progress  along  the  slippery  street.  A  woman 
with  a  basket  had  stopped  under  the  street  light 
and  was  rearranging  her  parcels.  The  clock  of 
the  city  hall,  visible  over  the  opposite  roofs, 
marked  only  twenty  minutes  to  nine.  It  was  still 
early  evening — not  even  midnight,  the  magic 
hour  of  the  night. 

Somehow  that  fact  reassured  me.,  and  I  was 
able  to  take  stock  of  my  surroundings.  I  realized, 
for  instance,  that  I  stood  in  the  room  over 
Arthur's  dressing  room,  and  that  it  was  into  the 
ceiling  under  me  that  the  second — or  probably 
the  first — bullet  had  penetrated.  I  know,  as  it 
happens,  very  little  of  firearms,  but  I  did  realize 
that  a  shot  from  a  .45  Colt  automatic  would  have 
considerable  penetrative  power.  To  be  exact,  that 
the  bullet  had  probably  either  lodged  itself  in  a 
joist,  or  had  penetrated  through  the  flooring  and 
might  be  somewhere  over  my  head. 

But  my  candle  was  inadequate  for  more  than 
the  most  superficial  examination  of  the  ceiling, 


86 SIGHT  UNSEEN       

which  presented  so  far  as  I  could  see  an  unbroken 
surface.  I  turned  my  attention,  therefore,  to  the 
floor.  It  was  when  I  was  turning  the  rug  back 
that  I  recognized  the  natural  and  not  supernatu 
ral  origin  of  the  sound  which  had  so  startled  me. 
It  had  been  the  soft  movement  of  the  carpet 
across  the  floor  boards. 

Some  one,  then,  had  been  there  before  me — 
some  one  who  knew  what  I  knew,  had  reasoned 
as  I  reasoned.  Some  one  who,  in  all  probability., 
still  lurked  on  the  upper  floor. 

Obeying  an  impulse,  I  stood  erect  and  called 
out  sharply,  "Sperry!"  I  said.  "Sperry!" 

There  was  no  answer.  I  tried  again,  calling 
Herbert.  But  only  my  own  voice  came  back  to 
me,  and  the  whistling  of  the  wind  through  the 
window  I  had  opened. 

My  fears,  never  long  in  abeyance  that  night, 
roused  again.  I  had  instantly  a  conviction  that 
some  human  figure,  sinister  and  dangerous,  was 
lurking  in  the  shadows  of  that  empty  floor,  and 
I  remember  backing  away  from  the  door  and 
standing  in  the  center  of  the  room,  prepared  for 
some  stealthy,  murderous  assault.  When  none 
came  I  looked  about  for  a  weapon,  and  finally 
took  the  only  thing  in  sight,  a  coal-tongs  from 
the  fireplace.  Armed  with  that,  I  made  a  cursory 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 87 

round  of  the  near-by  rooms  but  there  was  no  one 
hiding  in  them. 

I  went  back  to  the  rug  and  examined  the  floor 
beneath  it.  I  was  right.  Some  one  had  been 
there  before  me.  Bits  of  splintered  wood  lay 
about.  The  second  bullet  had  been  fired,  had 
buried  itself  in  the  flooring,  and  had,  some  five 
minutes  before,  been  dug  out. 


VII 

The  extraordinary  thing  about  the  Arthur 
Wells  story  was  not  his  killing.  For  killing  it 
was.  It  was  the  way  it  was  solved. 

Here  was  a  young  woman,  Miss  Jeremy,  who 
had  not  known  young  Wells,  had  not  known  his 
wife,  had,,  until  that  first  meeting  at  Mrs.  Dane's, 
never  met  any  member  of  the  Neighborhood 
Club.  Yet,  but  for  her,  Arthur  Wells  would 
have  gone  to  his  grave  bearing  the  stigma  of 
moral  cowardice,  of  suicide. 

The  solution,  when  it  came,  was  amazing,  but 
remarkably  simple.  Like  most  mysteries.  I 
have  in  my  own  house,  for  instance,  an  example 
of  a  great  mystery,  founded  on  mere  absent- 
mindedness. 


88 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

This  is  what  my  wife  terms  the  mystery  of  the 
fire-tongs. 

I  had  left  the  Wells  house  as  soon  as  I  had 
made  the  discovery  in  the  night  nursery.  I  car 
ried  the  candle  and  the  fire-tongs  downstairs.  I 
was,  apparently,  calm  but  watchful.  I  would 
have  said  that  I  had  never  been  more  calm  in  my 
life.  I  knew  quite  well  that  I  had  the  fire-tongs 
in  my  hand.  Just  when  I  ceased  to  be  cognizant 
of  them  was  probably  when,  on  entering  the 
library,  I  found  that  my  overcoat  had  disap 
peared,  and  that  my  stiff  hat,  badly  broken,  lay 
on  the  floor.  However,  as  I  say,  I  was  still 
extraordinarily  composed.  I  picked  up  my  hat., 
and  moving  to  the  rear  door,  went  out  and  closed 
it.  When  I  reached  the  street,  however,  I  had 
only  gone  a  few  yards  when  I  (Jiscovered  that  I 
was  still  carrying  the  lighted  candle,  and  that 
a  man,  passing  by,  had  stopped  and  was  staring 
after  me. 

My  composure  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  I 
dropped  the  candle  down  the  next  sewer  opening, 
but  the  fact  remains  that  I  carried  the  fire-tongs 
home.  I  do  not  recall  doing  so.  In  fact,  I  knew 
nothing  of  the  matter  until  morning.  On  the 
way  to  my  house  I  was  elaborating  a  story  to  the 
effect  that  my  overcoat  had  been  stolen  from  a 
restaurant  where  I  and  my  client  had  dined.  The 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 89 

hat  offered  more  serious  difficulties.  I  fancied 
that,  by  kissing  my  wife  good-by  at  the  breakfast 
table,  I  might  be  able  to  get  out  without  her  fol 
lowing  me  to  the  front  door,  which  is  her  cus 
tom. 

But.,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  I  need  not  have  con 
cerned  myself  about  the  hat.  When  I  descended 
to  breakfast  the  next  morning  I  found  her  sur 
veying  the  umbrella-stand  in  the  hall.  The  fire- 
tongs  were  standing  there,  gleaming,  among  my 
sticks  and  umbrellas. 

I  lied.  I  lied  shamelessly.  She  is  a  nervous 
woman,  and,  as  we  have  no  children,  her  attitude 
toward  me  is  one  of  watchful  waiting.  Through 
long  years  she  has  expected  me  to  commit  some 
indiscretion — innocent,  of  course,  such  as  going 
out  without  my  overcoat  on  a  cool  day — and  she 
intends  to  be  on  hand  for  every  emergency.  I 
dared  not  confess,  therefore,  that  on  the  previous 
evening  I  had  burglariously  entered  a  closed 
house,  had  there  surprised  another  intruder  at 
work,  had  fallen  and  bumped  my  head  severely, 
and  had,  finally,  had  my  overcoat  taken. 

"Horace,"  she  said  coldly,  "where  did  you  get 
those  fire-tongs?'* 

"Fire-tongs?"  I  repeated.  "Why,  that's  so. 
They  are  fire-tongs." 

"Where  did  you  get  them?" 


90 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

"My  dear/'  I  expostulated,  "I  get  them?" 

"What  I  would  like  to  ask,"  she  said,  with  an 
icy  calmness  that  I  have  learned  to  dread,  "is 
whether  you  carried  them  home  over  your  head,, 
under  the  impression  that  you  had  yotfr  um 
brella." 

"Certainly  not,"  I  said  with  dignity.  "I  assure 
you,  my  dear " 

"I  am  not  a  curious  woman,"  she  put  in 
incisively,  "but  when  my  husband  spends  an  even 
ing  out,  and  returns  minus  his  overcoat,  with  his 
hat  mashed,  a  lump  the  size  of  an  egg  over  his 
ear,  and  puts  a  pair  of  fire-tongs  in  the  umbrella 
stand  under  the  impression  that  it  is  an  umbrella, 
I  have  a  right  to  ask  at  least  if  he  intends  to  con 
tinue  his  life  of  debauchery." 

I  made  a  mistake  then.  I  should  have  told 
her.  Instead,  I  took  my  broken  hat  and  jammed 
it  on  my  head  with  a  force  that  made  the  lump  she 
had  noticed  jump  like  a  toothache,  and  went  out. 

When,  at  noon  and  luncheon,  I  tried  to  tell  her 
the  truth,  she  listened  to  the  end:  Then:  "I 
should  think  you  could  have  done  better  than 
that,"  she  said.  "You  have  had  all  morning  to 
think  it  out." 

However,  if  things  were  in  a  state  of  armed 
neutrality  at  home,  I  had  a  certain  compensation 


SIGHT  UNSEEN  91 

for  them  when  I  told  my  story  to  Sperry  that 
afternoon. 

"You  see  how  it  is,"  I  finished.  "You  can  stay 
out  of  this,  or  come  in,  Sperry,  but  I  cannot  stop 
now.  He  was  murdered  beyond  a  doubt,  and 
there  is  an  intelligent  effort  being  made  to  elimi 
nate  every  particle  of  evidence." 

He  nodded. 

"It  looks  like  it.  And  this  man  who  was  there 
last  night " 

"Why  a  man?" 

"He  took  your  overcoat,  instead  of  his  own,, 
didn't  he?  It  may  have  been — it's  curious,  isn't 
it,  that  we've  had  no  suggestion  of  Ellingham  in 
all  the  rest  of  the  material." 

Like  the  other  members  of  the  Neighborhood 
Club,  he  had  a  copy  of  the  proceedings  at  the  two 
seances,  and  now  he  brought  them  out  and  fell  to 
studying  them. 

"She  was  right  about  the  bullet  in  the  ceiling," 
he  reflected.  "I  suppose  you  didn't  look  for  the 
box  of  shells  for  the  revolver?" 

"I  meant  to,  but  it  slipped  my  mind." 

He  shuffled  the  loose  pages  of  the  record. 
"Cane — washed  away  by  the  water — a  knee  that 
is  hurt — the  curtain  would  have  been  safer — 
Hawkins — the  drawing-room  furniture  is  all  over 
the  house.  That  last.,  Horace,  isn't  pertinent.  It 


92  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

refers  clearly  to  the  room  we  were  in.  Of  course, 
the  point  is,  how  much  of  the  rest  is  also  extra 
neous  matter?"  He  re-read  one  of  the  sheets. 
"Of  course  that  belongs,  about  Hawkins.  And 
probably  this :  'It  will  be  terrible  if  the  letters  are 
found/  They  were  in  the  pocketbook,  pre 
sumably." 

He  folded  up  the  papers  and  replaced  them  in 
a  drawer. 

"We'd  better  go  back  to  the  house,"  he  said. 
"Whoever  took  your  overcoat  by  mistake  prob 
ably  left  one.  The  difficulty  is,  of  course,  that 
he  probably  discovered  his  error  and  went  back 
again  last  night.  Confound  it,  man,  if  you  had 
thought  of  that  at  the  time,  we  would  have  some 
thing  to  go  on  today." 

"If  I  had  thought  of  a  number  of  things  I'd 
have  stayed  out  of  the  place  altogether,"  I 
retorted  tartly.  "I  wish  you  could  help  me  about 
the  fire-tongs,  Sperry.  I  don't  seem  able  to  think 
of  any  explanation  that  Mrs.  Johnson  would  be 
willing  to  accept." 

"Tell  her  the  truth." 

"I  don't  think  you  understand,"  I  explained. 
"She  simply  wouldn't  believe  it.  And  if  she  did 
I  should  have  to  agree  to  drop  the  investigation. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  Sperry,  I  had  resorted  to 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 93 

subterfuge  in  order  to  remain  out  last  evening, 
and  I  am  bitterly  regretting  my  mendacity/' 

But  Sperry  has,  I  am  afraid,  rather  loose  ideas. 

"Every  man/'  he  said,  "would  rather  tell  the 
truth,  but  every  woman  makes  it  necessary  to  lie 
to  her.  Forget  the  fire-tongs,  Horace,  and  forget 
Mrs.  Johnson  to-night.  He  may  not  have  dared 
to  go  back  in  day-light  for  his  overcoat." 

"Very  well,"  I  agreed. 

But  it  was  not  very  well,  and  I  knew  it.  I  felt 
that,  in  a  way,  my  whole  domestic  happiness  was 
at  stake.  My  wife  is  a  difficult  person  to  argue 
with,  and  as  tenacious  of  an  opinion  once  formed 
as  are  all  very  amiable  people.  However,  unfor 
tunately  for  our  investigation,  but  luckily  for  me, 
under  the  circumstances,  Sperry  was  called  to 
another  city  that  afternoon  and  did  not  return  for 
two  days. 

It  was,  it  will  be  recalled,  on  the  Thursday 
night  following  the  second  sitting  that  I  had  gone 
alone  to  the  Wells  house,  and  my  interview  with 
Sperry  was  on  Friday.  It  was  on  Friday  after 
noon  that  I  received  a  telephone  message  from 
Mrs.  Dane. 

It  was  actually  from  her  secretary,  the  Clara 
who  had  recorded  the  seances.  It  was  Mrs. 
Dane's  misfortune  to  be  almost  entirely  depend 
ent  on  the  various  young  women  who,  one  after 


94  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

the  other,,  were  employed  to  look  after  her.  I 
say  "one  after  the  other"  advisedly.  It  had  long 
been  a  matter  of  good-natured  jesting  in  the 
Neighborhood  Club  that  Mrs.  Dane  conducted  a 
matrimonial  bureau,,  as  one  young  woman  after 
another  was  married  from  her  house.  It  was 
her  kindly  habit,  on  such  occasions,  to  give  the 
bride  a  wedding,  and  only  a  month  before  it  had 
been  my  privilege  to  give  away  in  holy  wedlock 
Miss  Clara's  predecessor. 

"Mrs.  Dane  would  like  you  to  stop  in  and  have 
a  cup  of  tea  with  her  this  afternoon,  Mr.  John 
son/'  said  the  secretary. 

"At  what  time?" 

"At  four  o'clock." 

I  hesitated.  I  felt  that  my  wife  was  waiting 
at  home  for  further  explanation  of  the  coal-tongs, 
and  that  the  sooner  we  had  it  out  the  better.  But, 
on  the  other  hand,,  Mrs.  Dane's  invitations,  by 
reason  of  her  infirmity,  took  on  something  of  the 
nature  of  commands. 

"Please  say  that  I  will  be  there  at  four,"  I 
replied. 

I  bought  a  new  hat  that  afternoon,  and  told 
the  clerk  to  destroy  the  old  one.  Then  I  went 
to  Mrs.  Dane's. 

She  was  in  the  drawing-room,  now  restored  to 
its  usual  clutter  of  furniture  and  ornaments.  I 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 95 

made  my  way  around  two  tables,  stepped  over 
a  hassock  and  under  the  leaves  of  an  artificial 
palm,  and  shook  her  hand. 

She  was  plainly  excited.  Never  have  I  known 
a  woman  who,  confined  to  a  wheel-chair,  lived  so 
hard.  She  did  not  allow  life  to  pass  her  windows, 
if  I  may  put  it  that  way.  She  called  it  in,  and 
set  it  moving  about  her  chair,  herself  the  nucleus 
around  which  were  enacted  all  sorts  of  small 
neighborhood  dramas  and  romances.  Her  secre 
taries  did  not  marry.  She  married  them. 

It  is  curious  to  look  back  and  remember  how 
Herbert  and  Sperry  and  myself  had  ignored  this 
quality  in  her,  in  the  Wells  case.  She  was  not  to 
be  ignored,  as  I  discovered  that  afternoon. 

"Sit  down,"  she  said.  "You  look  half  sick, 
Horace." 

Nothing  escapes  her  eyes,  so  I  was  careful  to 
place  myself  with  the  lump  on  my  head  turned 
away  from  her.  But  I  fancy  she  saw  it,  for  her 
eyes  twinkled. 

"Horace!  Horace!"  she  said.  "How  I  have 
detested  you  all  week !" 

"I?    You  detested  me?" 

"Loathed  you,"  she  said  with  unction.  "You 
are  cruel  and  ungrateful.  Herbert  has  influenza, 
and  does  not  count.  And  Sperry  is  in  love — oh 


96 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

yes,  I  know  it.     I  know  a  great  many  things. 
But  you !" 

I  could  only  stare  at  her. 

"The  strange  thing  is,"  she  went  on,,  "that  I 
have  known  you  for  years,  and  never  suspected 
your  sense  of  humor.  You'll  forgive  me,  I  know, 
if  I  tell  you  that  your  lack  of  humor  was  to  my 
mind  the  only  flaw  in  an  otherwise  perfect  char 
acter." 

"I  am  not  aware "  I  began  stiffly.    "I  have 

always  believed  that  I  furnished  to  the  Neighbor 
hood  Club  its  only  leaven  of  humor." 

"Don't  spoil  it,"  she  begged.  "Don't.  If  you 
could  know  how  I  have  enjoyed  it.  All  afternoon 
I  have  been  chuckling.  The  fire-tongs,  Horace. 
The  fire-tongs !" 

Then  I  knew  that  my  wife  had  been  to  Mrs. 
Dane  and  I  drew  a  long  breath.  "I  assure  you," 
I  said  gravely,  "that  while  doubtless  I  carried  the 
wretched  things  home  and — er — placed  them 
where  they  were  found,  I  have  not  the  slightest 
recollection  of  it.  And  it  is  hardly  amusing, 
is  it?" 

"Amusing!"  she  cried.  "It's  delicious.  It  has 
made  me  a  young  woman  again.  Horace,  if  I 
could  have  seen  your  wife's  face  when  she  found 
them,  I  would  give  cheerfully  almost  anything  I 
possess." 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 97 

But  underneath  her  mirth  I  knew  there  was 
something  else.  And,  after  all,  she  could  con 
vince  my  wife  if  she  were  convinced  herself.  I 
told  the  whole  story — of  the  visit  Sperry  and  I 
had  made  the  night  Arthur  Wells  was  shot,  and 
of  what  we  discovered;  of  the  clerk  at  the  phar 
macy  and  his  statement,  and  even  of  the  whiskey 
and  its  unfortunate  effect — at  which,  I  regret  to 
say,  she  was  vastly  amused;  and,  last  of  all,  of 
my  experience  the  previous  night  in  the  deserted 
house. 

She  was  very  serious  when  I  finished.  Tea 
came,  but  we  forgot  to  drink  it.  Her  eyes  flashed 
with  excitement,  her  faded  face  flushed.  And, 
with  it  all,  as  I  look  back,  there  was  an  air  of 
suppressed  excitement  that  seemed  to  have  noth 
ing  to  do  with  my  narrative.  I  remembered  it, 
however,  when  the  denouement  came  the  fol 
lowing  week. 

She  was  a  remarkable  woman.  Even  then  she 
knew,  or  strongly  suspected,  the  thing  that  the 
rest  of  us  had  missed,  the  x  of  the  equation.  But 
I  think  it  only  fair  to  record  that  she  was  in  pos 
session  of  facts  which  we  did  not  have,  and 
which  she  did  not  divulge  until  the  end. 

"You  have  been  so  ungenerous  with  me./'  she 
said  finally,  "that  I  am  tempted  not  to  tell  you 
why  I  sent  for  you.  Of  course,  I  know  I  am  only 


98 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

a  helpless  old  woman,  and  you  men  are  people  of 
affairs.  But  now  and  then  I  have  a  flash  of 
intelligence.  I'm  going  to  tell  you,  but  you  don't 
deserve  it." 

She  went  down  into  the  black  silk  bag  at  her 
side  which  was  as  much  a  part  of  her  attire  as  the 
false  front  she  wore  with  such  careless  abandon, 
and  which,  brown  in  color  and  indifferently 
waved,  was  invariably  parting  from  its  mooring. 
She  drew  out  a  newspaper  clipping. 

"On  going  over  Clara's  notes,"  she  said,,  "I 
came  to  the  conclusion,  last  Tuesday,  that  the 
matter  of  the  missing  handbag  and  the  letters 
was  important.  More  important,  probably,  than 
the  mere  record  shows.  Do  you  recall  the  note  of 
distress  in  Miss  Jeremy's  voice  ?  It  was  almost  a 
wail." 

I  had  noticed  it. 

"I  have  plenty  of  time  to  think,"  she  added,  not 
without  pathos.  "There  is  only  one  Monday  night 
in  the  week,,  and — the  days  are  long.  It  occurred 
to  me  to  try  to  trace  that  bag." 

"In  what  way?" 

"How  does  any  one  trace  lost  articles?"  she 
demanded.  "By  advertising,  of  course.  Last 
Wednesday  I  advertised  for  the  bag." 

I  was  too  astonished  to  speak. 

"I  reasoned  like  this:    If  there  was  no  such 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 99 

bag,  there  was  no  harm  done.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  if  there  was  no  such  bag,  the  chances  were 
that  we  were  all  wrong,  anyhow.  If  there  was 
such  a  bag,  I  wanted  it.  Here  is  the  advertise 
ment  as  I  inserted  it." 

She  gave  me  a  small  newspaper  cutting : 

"Lost,,  a  handbag  containing  private  letters, 
car-tickets,  etc.  Liberal  reward  paid  for  its 
return.  Please  write  to  A  31,  the  Daily  News/' 

I  sat  with  it  on  my  palm.  It  was  so  simple,  so 
direct.  And  I,  a  lawyer,  and  presumably  reason 
ably  acute,  had  not  thought  of  it ! 

"You  are  wasted  on  us,  Mrs.  Dane/'  I  ac 
knowledged.  "Well  ?  I  see  something  has  come 
of  it." 

"Yes,  but  I'm  not  ready  for  it." 

She  dived  again  into  the  bag,  and  brought  up 
another  clipping. 

"On  the  day  that  I  had  that  inserted,"  she  said 
impressively,  "this  also  appeared.  They  were  in 
the  same  column."  She  read  the  second  clipping 
aloud,  slowly,  that  I  might  gain  all  its  signifi 
cance  : 

"Lost  on  the  night  of  Monday,  November  the 
second,  between  State  Avenue  and  Park  Avenue, 


r 

100~  SIGHT  UNSEEN 


possibly  on  an  Eastern  Line  street  car,  a  black 
handbag  containing  keys,  car-tickets,  private  let 
ters,  and  a  small  sum  of  money.  Reward  and 
no  questions  asked  if  returned  to  Daily  News 
office." 

She  passed  the  clipping  to  me  and  I  compared 
the  two.  It  looked  strange,  and  I  confess  to  a 
tingling  feeling  that  coincidence.,  that  element  so 
much  to  be  feared  in  any  investigation,  was  not 
the  solution  here.  But  there  was  such  a  chance, 
and  I  spoke  of  it. 

"Coincidence  rubbish!"  she  retorted.  "I  am 
not  through,  my  friend." 

She  went  down  into  the  bag  again,  and  I 
expected  nothing  less  than  the  pocketbook,  let 
ters  and  all,  to  appear.  But  she  dragged  up, 
among  a  miscellany  of  handkerchiefs,,  a  bottle 
of  smelling-salts,  and  a  few  almonds,  of  which 
she  was  inordinately  fond,  an  envelope. 

"Yesterday,"  she  said,  "I  took  a  taxicab  ride. 
You  know  my  chair  gets  tiresome,  occasionally. 
I  stopped  at  the  newspaper  office,  and  found  the 
bag  had  not  been  turned  in,  but  that  there  was  a 
letter  for  A  31."  She  held  out  the  envelope 
to  me. 

"Read  it,"  she  observed.  "It  is  a  curious 
human  document.  You'll  probably  be  no  wiser 


SIGHT  UNSEEN  101 

for  reading  it,  but  it  shows  one  thing:  We  are 
on  the  track  of  something." 

I  have  the  letter  before  me  now.  It  is  written 
on  glazed  paper,  ruled  with  blue  lines.  The  writ 
ing  is  of  the  flowing  style  we  used  to  call  Spen- 
cerian,  and  if  it  lacks  character  I  am  inclined  to 
believe  that  its  weakness  is  merely  the  result 
of  infrequent  use  of  a  pen 

You  know  who  this  is  from.  I  have  the  bag 
and  the  letters.  In  a  safe  place.  If  you  would 
treat  me  like  a  human  being,  you  could  have  them. 
I  know  where  the  walking-stick  is,  also.  I  will 
tell  you  this.  I  have  no  wish  to  do  her  any  harm. 
She  will  have  to  pay  up  in  the  next  world,  even 
if  she  gets  off  in  this.  The  way  I  reason  is  this : 
As  long  as  I  have  the  things,  I've  got  the  whip- 
hand.  I've  got  you,  too,  although  you  may  think 
I  haven't. 

About  the  other  matter  I  was  innocent.  I 
swear  it  again.  I  never  did  it.  You  are  the  only 
one  in  all  the  world.  I  would  rather  be  dead 
than  go  on  like  this. 

It  is  unsigned. 

I  stared  from  the  letter  to  Mrs.  Dane.     She 

was  watching  me,  her  face  grave  and  rather  sad. 

"You   and   I,   Horace,"    she   said,    "live  our 


102  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

orderly  lives.  We  eat,  and  sleep,  and  talk,  and 
even  labor.  We  think  we  are  living.  But  for 
the  last  day  or  two  I  have  been  seeing  visions — 
you  and  I  and  the  rest  of  us,  living  on  the  surface, 
and  underneath,  carefully  kept  down  so  it  will 
not  make  us  uncomfortable,  a  wrorld  of  passion 
and  crime  and  violence  and  suffering.  That  let 
ter  is  a  tragedy." 

But  if  she  had  any  suspicion  then  as  to  the 
writer,  and  I  think  she  had  not,  she  said  nothing, 
and  soon  after  I  started  for  home.  I  knew  that 
one  of  two  things  would  have  happened  there: 
either  my  wife  would  have  put  away  the  fire- 
tongs,  which  would  indicate  a  truce,  or  they  would 
remain  as  they  had  been,  which  would  indicate 
that  she  still  waited  for  the  explanation  I  could 
not  give.  It  was  with  a  certain  tension,  therefore, 
that  I  opened  my  front  door. 

The  fire-tongs  still  stood  in  the  stand. 

In  one  way,  however,  Mrs.  Johnson's  refusal 
to  speak  to  me  that  evening  had  a  certain  value, 
for  it  enabled  me  to  leave  the  house  without 
explanation,  and  thus  to  discover  that,  if  an  over 
coat  had  been  left  in  place  of  my  own,  it  had  been 
taken  away.  It  also  gave  me  an  opportunity  to 
return  the  fire-tongs,  a  proceeding  which  I  had 
considered  would  assist  in  a  return  of  the  entente 
cordiale  at  home,  but  which  most  unjustly 


SIGHT  UNSEEN  103 

appeared   to   have   exactly   the   opposite   effect. 

It  has  been  my  experience  that  the  most  inno 
cent  action  may,  under  certain  circumstances, 
assume  an  appearance  of  extreme  guilt.  .  .  . 

By  Saturday  the  condition  of  affairs  between 
my  wife  and  myself  remained  in  statu  quo,  and  I 
had  decided  on  a  bold  step.  This  was  to  call  a 
special  meeting  of  the  Neighborhood  Club,  with 
out  Miss  Jeremy,  and  put  before  them  the  situa- 
tionTas  it  stood  at  that  timejwith  a  view  to  for 
mulating  a  future  course  of  action,  and  also  of 
publicly  vindicating  myself  before  my  wife. 

In  deference  to  Herbert  Robinson's  recent 
attack  of  influenza,  we  met  at  the  Robinson  house. 
Sperry  himself  wheeled  Mrs.  Dane  over,  and 
made  a  speech. 

"We  have  called  this  meeting/'  he  said,  "be 
cause  a  rather  singular  situation  has  developed. 
What  was  commenced  purely  as  an  interesting 
experiment  has  gone  beyond  that  stage.  We  find 
ourselves  in  the  curious  position  of  taking  what 
comes  very  close  to  being  a  part  in  a  domestic 
tragedy.  The  affair  is  made  more  delicate  by  the 
fact  that  this  tragedy  involves  people  who,  if  not 
our  friends,  at  least  are  very  well  known  to  us. 
The  purpose  of  this  meeting,  to  be  brief,  is  to 
deteimine  whether  the  Neighborhood  Club,  as  a 


104  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

body,  wishes  to  go  on  with  the  investigation,  or 
to  stop  where  we  are." 

He  paused,  but,  as  no  one  spoke,  he  went  on 
again.  "It  is  really  not  as  simple  as  that,,"  he 
said.  "To  stop  now,  in  view  of  the  evidence  we 
intend  to  place  before  the  Club,  is  to  leave  in  all 
our  minds  certain  suspicions  that  may  be  entirely 
unjust.  On  the  other  hand,  to  go  on  is  very 
possible  to  place  us  all  in  a  position  where 
to  keep  silent  is  to  be  an  accessory  after  a  crime." 

He  then  proceeded,  in  orderly  fashion,  to 
review  the  first  sitting  and  its  results.  He  read 
from  notes,  elaborating  them  as  he  went  along, 
for  the  benefit  of  the  women,  who  had  not  been 
fully  informed.  As  all  the  data  of  the  Club  is 
now7  in  my  possession,  I  copy  these  notes. 

"I  shall  review  briefly  the  first  sitting,  and  what 
followed  it."  He  read  the  notes  of  the  sitting 
first.  "You  will  notice  that  I  have  made  no 
comment  on  the  physical  phenomena  which  oc 
curred  early  in  the  seance.  This  is  for  two  rea 
sons:  first,  it  has  no  bearing  on  the  question  at 
issue.  Second,  it  has  no  quality  of  novelty.  Cer 
tain  people,  under  certain  conditions,  are  able  to 
exert  powers  that  we  can  not  explain.  I  have 
no  belief  whatever  in  their  spiritistic  quality. 
They  are  purely  physical,  the  exercise  of  powers 
we  have  either  not  yet  risen  high  enough  in  our 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 105 

scale  of  development  to  recognize  generally,,  or 
which  have  survived  from  some  early  period 
when  our  natural  gifts  had  not  been  smothered 
by  civilization." 

And,  to  make  our  position  clear,  that  is  today 
the  attitude  of  the  Neighborhood  Club.  The 
supernormal,  as  I  said  at  the  beginning,  not  the 
supernatural,  is  our  explanation. 

Sperry's  notes  were  alphabetical. 

(a)  At  9:15,  or  somewhat  earlier,  on  Monday 
night  a  week  ago  Arthur  Wells  killed  himself, 
or  was  killed.    At  9:30  on  that  same  evening  by 
Mr.  Johnson's  watch,  consulted  at  the  time,  Miss 
Jeremy  had  described  such  a  crime.     (Here  he 
elaborated,  repeating  the  medium's  account.) 

(b)  At  midnight,  Sperry,  reaching  home,  had 
found  a  message  summoning  him  to  the  Wells 
house.    The  message  had  been  left  at  9:35.    He 
had  telephoned  me,  and  we  had  gone  together, 
arriving  at  approximately  12:30. 

(c)  We  had  been  unable  to  enter,  and,  recall 
ing  the  medium's  description  of  a  key  on  a  nail 
among  the  vines,  had  searched  for  and  found 
such  a  key,  and  had  admitted  ourselves.     Mrs. 
Wells,  a  governess,  a  doctor,  and  two  policemen 
were  in  the  house.    The  dead  man  lay  in  the  room 
in  which  he  had  died.     (Here  he  went  at  length 
into  the  condition  of  the  room,  the  revolver  with 


106  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

one  chamber  empty,  and  the  blood-stained  sponge 
and  razorstrop  behind  the  bathtub.  We  had 
made  a  hasty  examination  of  the  ceiling,  but  had 
found  no  trace  of  a  second  shot. 

(d)  The  governess  had  come  in  at  9:15,  just 
after  the  death.  Mr.  Horace  Johnson  had  had 
a  talk  with  her.  She  had  left  the  front  door 
unfastened  when  she  went  out  at  eight  o'clock. 
She  said  she  had  gone  out  to  telephone  about 
another  position,  as  she  was  dissatisfied.  She  had 
phoned  from  Elliott's  pharmacy  on  State  Avenue. 
Later  that  night  Mr.  Johnson  had  gone  to 
Elliott's.  She  had  lied  about  the  message.  She 
had  really  telephoned  to  a  number  which  the 
pharmacy  clerk  had  already  discovered  was  that 
of  the  Ellingham  house.  The  message  was  that 
Mr.  Ellingham  was  not  to  come,  as  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Wells  were  going  out.  It  was  not  <:he  first  time 
she  had  telephoned  to  that  number 

There  was  a  stir  in  the  room.  Something 
which  we  had  tacitly  avoided  had  come  suddenly 
into  the  open.  Sp'erry  raised  his  hand. 

"It  is  necessary  to  be  explicit,"  he  said,  "that 
the  Club  may  see  where  it  stands.  It  is,  of  course, 
not  necessary  to  remind  ourselves  that  this  eve 
ning's  disclosures  are  of  the  most  secret  nature. 
I  urge  that  the  Club  jump  to  no  hasty  conclusions, 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 107 

and  that  there  shall  be  no  interruptions  until  we 
have  finished  with  our  records. 

(e)  At  a  private  seance,  which  Mr.  Johnson 
and  I  decided  was  excusable  under  the  circum 
stances,  the  medium  was  unable  to  give  us  any 
thing.     This  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  we  had 
taken  with  us  a  walking-stick  belonging  to  the 
dead  man. 

(f)  The  second  sitting  of  the  Club.     I  need 
only  refresh  your  minds  as  to  one  or  two  things  ; 
the  medium  spoke  of  a  lost  pocketbook,  and  of  let 
ters.    While  the  point  is  at  least  capable  of  doubt, 
apparently  the  letters  were  in  the  pocketbook. 
Also,  she  said  that  a  curtain  would  have  been 
better,  that  Hawkins  was  a  nuisance,  and  that 
everything  was  all  right  unless  the  bullet  had 
made  a  hole  in  the  floor  above.     You  will  also 
recall  the  mention  of  a  box  of  cartridges  in  a 
table  drawer  in  Arthur  Wells's  room. 

"I  will  now  ask  Mr.  Horace  Johnson  to  tell 
what  occurred  on  the  night  before  last,  Thursday 
evening/' 

"I  do  not  think  Horace  has  a  very  clear  recol 
lection  of  last  Thursday  night,"  my  wife  said, 
coldly.  "And  I  wish  to  go  on  record  at  once  that 
if  he  claims  that  spirits  broke  his  hat,  stole  his 
overcoat,  bumped  his  head  and  sent  him  home 


108 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

with  a  pair  of  fire-tongs  for  a  walking-stick,  I 
don't  believe  him." 

Which  attitude  Herbert,  I  regret  to  say,  did 
not  help  when  he  said: 

"Don't  worry,  Horace  will  soon  be  too  old  for 
the  gay  life.  Remember  your  arteries,  Horace." 

I  have  quoted  this  interruption  to  show  how 
little,  outside  of  Sperry,  Mrs.  Dane  and  myself, 
the  Neighborhood  Club  appreciated  the  serious 
ness  of  the  situation.  Herbert,  for  instance,  had 
been  greatly  amused  when  Sperry  spoke  of  my 
finding  the  razorstrop  and  had  almost  chuckled 
over  our  investigation  of  the  ceiling. 

But  they  were  very  serious  when  I  had  fin 
ished  my  statement. 

"Great  Scott !"  Herbert  said.  "Then  she  was 
right,  after  all!  I  say,  I  guess  I've  been  no  end 
of  an  ass." 

I  was  inclined  to  agree  with  him.  But  the  real 
effect  of  my  brief  speech  was  on  my  wife. 

It  was  a  real  compensation  for  that  night  of 
terror  and  for  the  uncomfortable  time  since  to 
find  her  gaze  no  longer  cold,  but  sympathetic, 
and — if  I  may  be  allowed  to  say  so — admiring. 
When  at  last  I  sat  down  beside  her,  she  put  her 
hand  on  my  arm  in  a  way  that  I  had  missed  since 
the  unfortunate  affair  of  the  pharmacy  whiskey. 

Mrs.  Dane  then  read  and  explained  the  two 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 109 

clippings  and  the  letter,  and  the  situation,  so  far 
as  it  had  developed,  was  before  the  Club. 

Were  we  to  go  on,  or  to  stop  ? 

Put  to  a  vote,  the  women  were  for  going  on. 
The  men  were  more  doubtful,  and  Herbert  voiced 
what  I  think  we  all  felt. 

"We're  getting  in  pretty  deep,"  he  said.  "We 
have  no  right  to  step  in  where  the  law  has  stepped 
out — no  legal  right,  that  is.  As  to  moral  right,  it 
depends  on  what  we  are  holding  these  sittings 
for.  If  we  are  making  what  we  started  out  to 
make,  an  investigation  into  psychic  matters,  then 
we  can  go  on.  But  with  this  proviso,  I  think: 
Whatever  may  come  of  it,  the  result  is  of  psychic 
interest  only.  We  are  not  trailing  a  criminal." 

"Crime  is  the  affair  of  every  decent-minded 
citizen,,"  his  sister  put  in  concisely. 

But  the  general  view  was  that  Herbert  was 
right.  I  am  not  defending  our  course.  I  am 
recording  it.  It  is,  I  admit,  open  to  argument. 

Having  decided  on  what  to  do,  or  not  to  do, 
we  broke  into  animated  discussion.  The  letter 
to  A  31  was  the  rock  on  which  all  our  theories 
foundered,  that  and  the  message  the  governess 
had  sent  to  Charlie  Ellingham  not  to  come  to  the 
Wells  house  that  night.  By  no  stretch  of  rather 
excited  imaginations  could  we  imagine  Ellingham 


110 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

writing  such  a  letter.  Who  had  written  the  let 
ter,  then,  and  for  whom  was  it  meant  ? 

As  to  the  telephone  message,,  it  seemed  to  pre 
clude  the  possibility  of  Ellingham's  having  gone 
to  the  house  that  night.  But  the  fact  remained 
that  a  man,  as  yet  unidentified,  was  undoubtedly 
concerned  in  the  case,  had  written  the  letter,  and 
had  probably  been  in  the  Wells  house  the  night  I 
went  there  alone. 

In  the  end,  we  decided  to  hold  one  more  seance, 
and  then,  unless  the  further  developments  were 
such  that  we  must  go  on,  to  let  the  affair  drop. 

It  is  typical  of  the  strained  nervous  tension 
which  had  developed  in  all  of  us  during  the  past 
twelve  days,  that  that  night  when,  having  for 
gotten  to  let  the  dog  in,  my  wife  and  I  were 
roused  from  a  sound  sleep  by  his  howling,  she 
would  not  allow  me  to  go  down  and  admit  him. 


VIII 

On  Sunday  I  went  to  church.  I  felt,  after 
the  strange  phenomena  in  Mrs.  Dane's  drawing- 
room,  and  after  the  contact  with  tragedy  to  which 
they  had  led,  that  I  must  hold  with  a  sort  of 
desperation  to  the  traditions  and  beliefs  by  which 
I  had  hitherto  regulated  my  conduct.  And  the 


SIGHT  UNSEEN  111 

church  did  me  good.  Between  the  immortality 
it  taught  and  the  theory  of  spiritualism  as  we 
had  seen  it  in  action  there  was  a  great  gulf,  and 
I  concluded  that  this  gulf  was  the  soul.  The  con 
clusion  that  mind  and  certain  properties  of  mind 
survived  was  not  enough.  The  thought  of  a 
disembodied  intelligence  was  pathetic,  depressing. 
But  the  thought  of  a  glorified  soul  was  the  hope 
of  the  world.  .  .  . 

My  wife,  too,  was  in  a  penitent  and  rather 
exalted  mood.  During  the  sermon  she  sat  with 
her  hand  in  mine,  and  I  was  conscious  of  peace 
and  a  deep  thankfulness.  We  had  been  married 
for  many  years,  and  we  had  grown  very  close. 
Of  what  importance  was  the  Wells  case,  or  what 
mattered  it  that  there  were  strange  new-old  laws 
in  the  universe,  so  long  as  we  kept  together  ? 

That  my  wife  had  felt  a  certain  bitterness 
toward  Miss  Jeremy,  a  jealousy  of  her  powers, 
even  of  her  youth,  had  not  dawned  on  me.  But 
when,  in  her  new  humility,  she  suggested  that  we 
call  on  the  medium  that  afternoon.  I  realized  that, 
in  her  own  way,  she  was  making  a  sort  of  atone 
ment. 

Miss  Jeremy  lived  with  an  elderly  spinster 
cousin,  a  short  distance  out  of  town.  It  was  a 
grim  house,  coldly  and  rigidly  Calvinistic.  It 
gave  an  unpleasant  impression  at  the  start.,  and 


112  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

our  comfort  was  not  increased  by  the  discovery, 
made  early  in  the  call,  that  the  cousin  regarded 
the  Neighborhood  Club  and  its  members  with 
suspicion. 

The  cousin — her  name  was  Connell — was  small 
and  sharp,  and  she  entered  the  room  followed  by 
a  train  of  cats.  All  the  time  she  was  frigidly 
greeting  us,  cats  were  coming  in  at  the  door,  one 
after  the  other.  It  fascinated  me.  I  do  not  like 
cats.  I  am,  as  a  matter  of  confession,  afraid  of 
cats.  They  affect  me  as  do  snakes.  They  trailed 
in  in  a  seemingly  endless  procession,  and  one  of 
them  took  a  fancy  to  me,  and  leaped  from  behind 
on  to  my  shoulder.  The  shock  set  me  stammer 
ing. 

"My  cousin  is  out,"  said  Miss  Connell, 
"Doctor  Sperry  has  taken  her  for  a  ride.  She 
will  be  back  very  soon." 

I  shook  a  cat  from  my  trouser  leg,  and  my  wife 
made  an  unimportant  remark. 

"I  may  as  well  tell  you,  I  disapprove  of  what 
Alice  is  doing/'  said  Miss  Connell.  "She  doesn't 
have  to.  I've  offered  her  a  good  home.  She  was 
brought  up  a  Presbyterian.  I  call  this  sort  of 
thing  playing  with  the  powers  of  darkness.  Only 
the  eternally  damned  are  doomed  to  walk  the 
earth.  The  blessed  are  at  rest." 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 113 

"But  you  believe  in  her  powers,  don't  you?" 
my  wife  asked. 

"I  believe  she  can  do  extraordinary  things. 
She  saw  my  father's  spirit  in  this  very  room  last 
night,  and  described  him,  although  she  had  never 
seen  him." 

As  she  had  said  that  only  the  eternally  damned 
were  doomed  to  walk  the  earth,  I  was  tempted  to 
comment  on  this  stricture  on  her  departed  parent, 
but  a  large  cat,,  much  scarred  with  fighting  and 
named  Violet,  insisted  at  that  moment  on  crawl 
ing  into  my  lap,  and  my  attention  was  distracted. 

"But  the  whole  thing  is  un-Christian  and 
undignified,"  Miss  Connell  proceeded,  in  her  cold 
voice.  "Come,  Violet,  don't  annoy  the  gentleman. 
I  have  other  visions  of  the  next  life  than  of  rap 
ping  on  tables  and  chairs,  and  throwing  small 
articles  about." 

It  was  an  extraordinary  visit.  Even  the 
arrival  of  Miss  Jeremy  herself,  flushed  with  the 
air  and  looking  singularly  normal,  was  hardly  a 
relief.  Sperry,  who  followed,  was  clearly  pleased 
to  see  us,  however. 

It  was  not  hard  to  see  how  things  were  with 
him.  He  helped  the  girl  out  of  her  wraps  with  a 
manner  that  was  almost  proprietary,  and  drew 
a  chair  for  her  close  to  the  small  fire  which  hardly 
:ffected  the  chill  of  the  room. 


114 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

With  their  entrance  a  spark  of  hospitality 
seemed  to  kindle  in  the  cat  lady's  breast.  It  was 
evident  that  she  liked  Sperry.  Perhaps  she  saw 
in  him  a  method  of  weaning  her  cousin  from 
traffic  with  the  powers  of  darkness.  She  said 
something  about  tea,  and  went  out. 

Sperry  looked  across  at  the  girl  and  smiled. 

"Shall  I  tell  them?"  he  said. 

"I  want  very  much  to  have  them  know." 

He  stood  up,  and  with  that  unconscious  drama 
which  actuates  a  man  at  a  crisis  in  his  affairs,  he 
put  a  hand  on  her  shoulder.  "This  young  lady 
is  going  to  marry  me,"  he  said.  "We  are  very 
happy  today." 

But  I  thought  he  eyed  us  anxiously.  We  were 
very  close  friends,  and  he  wanted  our  approval. 
I  am  not  sure  if  we  were  wise.  I  do  not  yet 
know.  But  something  of  the  new  understanding 
between  my  wife  and  myself  must  have  found  its 
way  to  our  voices,  for  he  was  evidently  satisfied. 

"Then  that's  all  right,"  he  said  heartily.  And 
my  wife,  to  my  surprise,  kissed  the  girl. 

Except  for  the  cats,  sitting  around,,  the  whole 
thing  was  strangely  normal.  And  yet,  even  there, 
something  happened  that  set  me  to  thinking  after 
ward.  Not  that  it  was  strange  in  itself,  but  that 
it  seemed  never  possible  to  get  very  far  away 
from  the  Wells  mystery. 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 115 

Tea  was  brought  in  by  Hawkins! 

I  knew  him  immediately,  but  he  did  not  at  once 
see  me.  He  was  evidently  accustomed  to  seeing 
Sperry  there,  and  he  did  not  recognize  my  wife. 
But  when  he  had  put  down  the  tray  and  turned 
to  pick  up  Sperry's  overcoat  to  carry  it  into  the 
hall,  he  saw  me.  The  man  actually  started.  I 
cannot  say  that  he  changed  color.  He  was 
always  a  pale,  anaemic-looking  individual.  But 
it  was  a  j  erceptible  instant  before  he  stooped  and 
gathered  up  the  coat. 

Sperry  turned  to  me  when  he  had  gone  out. 
"That  was  Hawkins,  Horace/'  he  said.  "You 
remember,  don't  you?  The  Wellses'  butler." 

"I  knew  him  at  once." 

"He  wrote  to  me  asking  for  a  position,  and  I 
got  him  this.  Looks  sick,  poor  devil.  I  intend 
to  have  a  go  at  his  chest." 

"How  long  has  he  been  here?" 

"More  than  a  week,  I  think." 

As  I  drank  my  tea,  I  pondered.  After  all,  the 
Neighborhood  Club  must  guard  against  the  pos 
sibility  of  fraud,  and  I  felt  that  Sperry  had  been 
indiscreet,  to  say  the  least.  From  the  time  of 
Hawkins'  service  in  Miss  Jeremy's  home  there 
would  always  be  the  suspicion  of  collusion 
between  them.  I  did  not  believe  it  was  so,  but 
Herbert,  for  instance,  would  be  inclined  to  sus- 


116 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

pect  her.  Suppose  that  Hawkins  knew  about  the 
crime?  Or  knew  something  and  surmised  the 
rest? 

When  we  rose  to  go  Sperry  drew  me  aside. 

"You  think  I've  made  a  mistake?" 

"I  do." 

He  flung  away  with  an  impatient  gesture,  then 
came  back  to  me. 

"Now  look  here,,"  he  said,  "I  know  what  you 
mean,  and  the  whole  idea  is  absurd.  Of  coarse  I 
never  thought  about  it,  but  even  allowing  for 
connivance — which  I  don't  for  a  moment — the 
fellow  was  not  in  the  house  at  the  time  of  the 
murder." 

"I  know  he  says  he  was  not." 

"Even  then,"  he  said,  "how  about  the  first 
sitting?  I'll  swear  she  had  never  even  heard  of 
him  then." 

"The  fact  remains  that  his  presence  here  makes 
us  all  absurd." 

"Do  you  want  me  to  throw  him  out?" 

"I  don't  see  what  possible  good  that  will  do 
now." 

I  was  uneasy  all  the  way  home.  The  element 
of  doubt  always  so  imminent  in  our  dealings  with 
psychic  phenomena,  had  me  by  the  throat.  How 
much  did  Hawkins  know?  Was  there  any  way, 
without  going  to  the  police,  to  find  if  he  had  really 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 117 

been  out  of  the  Wells  house  that  night,  now 
almost  two  weeks  ago,  when  Arthur  Wells  had 
been  killed? 

That  evening  I  went  to  Sperry's  house,  after 
telephoning  that  I  was  coming.  On  the  way  I 
stopped  in  at  Mrs.  Dane's  and  secured  something 
from  her.  She  was  wildly  curious,  and  made  me 
promise  to  go  in  on  my  way  back,  and  explain. 
I  made  a  compromise. 

"I  will  come  in  if  I  have  anything  to  tell  you/' 
I  said. 

But  I  knew,  by  her  grim  smile,  that  she  would 
station  herself  by  her  window,,  and  that  I  would 
stop,  unless  I  made  a  detour  of  three  blocks  to 
avoid  her.  She  is  a  very  determined  woman. 

Sperry  was  waiting  for  me  in  his  library,  a 
pleasant  room  which  I  have  often  envied  him. 
Even  the  most  happily  married  man  wishes,  now 
and  then,  for  some  quiet,  dull  room  which  is 
essentially  his  own.  My  own  library  is  really 
the  family  sitting-room,  and  a  Christmas  or  so 
ago  my  wife  presented  me  with  a  very  handsome 
phonograph  instrument.  My  reading,  therefore, 
is  done  to  music,  and  the  necessity  for  putting  my 
book  down  to  change  the  record  at  times  inter 
feres  somewhat  with  my  train  of  thought. 

So  I  entered  Sperry's  library  with  appreciation. 
He  was  standing  by  the  fire,  with  the  grave  face 


118  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

and  slightly  bent  head  of  his  professional  man 
ner.  We  say,  in  the  neighborhood,  that  Sperry 
uses  his  professional  manner  as  armor,  so  I  was 
rather  prepared  to  do  battle;  but  he  forestalled 
me. 

"Horace,"  he  said,,  "I  have  been  a  fool,  a  drivel 
ing  idiot.  We  were  getting  something  at  those 
sittings.  Something  real.  She's  wonderful. 
She's  going  to  give  it  up,  but  the  fact  remains  that 
she  has  some  power  we  haven't,  and  now  I've 
discredited  her!  I  see  it  plainly  enough."  He 
was  rather  bitter  about  it,  but  not  hostile.  His 
fury  was  at  himself.  "Of  course,"  he  went  on, 
"I  am  sure  that  she  got  nothing  from  Hawkins. 

But  the  fact  remains "  He  was  hurt  in  his 

pride  of  her. 

"I  wonder,"  I  said,,  "if  you  kept  the  letter 
Hawkins  wrote  you  when  he  asked  for  a  posi 
tion." 

He  was  not  sure.  He  went  into  his  consulting 
room  and  was  gone  for  some  time.  I  took  the 
opportunity  to  glance  over  his  books  and  over  the 
room. 

Arthur  Wells's  stick  was  standing  in  a  corner, 
and  I  took  it  up  and  examined  it.  It  was  an 
English  malacca,  light  and  strong,  and  had  seen 
service.  It  was  long,  too  long  for  me ;  it  occurred 
to  me  that  Wells  had  been  about  my  height,  and 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 119 

that  it  was  odd  that  he  should  have  carried  so 
long  a  stick.  There  was  no  ease  in  swinging  it. 

From  that  to  the  memory  of  Hawkins's  face 
when  Sperry  took  it,  the  night  of  the  murder,  in 
the  hall  of  the  Wells  house,  was  only  a  step.  I 
seemed  that  day  to  be  thinking  considerably 
about  Hawkins. 

When  Sperry  returned  I  laid  the  stick  on  the 
table.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  I  did  so,  for 
I  had  to  move  a  book-rack  to  place  it.  One  end, 
the  handle,  was  near  the  ink-well,  and  the  ferrule 
lay  on  a  copy  of  Gibson's  "Life  Beyond  the 
Grave/'  which  Sperry  had  evidently  been  read 
ing. 

Sperry  had  found  the  letter.  As  I  glanced  at 
it  I  recognized  the  writing  at  once,  thin  and 
rather  sexless,  Spencerian. 

Dear  Sir:  Since  Mr.  Wells's  death  I  am  out 
of  employment.  Before  I  took  the  position  of 
butler  with  Mr.  Wells  I  was  valet  to  Mr.  Elling- 
ham,,  and  before  that,  in  England,  to  Lord 
Condray.  I  have  a  very  good  letter  of  recom 
mendation  from  Lord  Condray.  If  you  need  a 
servant  at  this  time  I  would  do  my  best  to  give 
satisfaction. 

(Signed)    ARTHUR  HAWKINS. 


120  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

I  put  down  the  application,  and  took  the  anony 
mous  letter  about  the  bag  from  my  pocketbook. 
"Read  this,  Sperry,"  I  said.  "You  know  the  let 
ter.  Mrs.  Dane  read  it  to  us  Saturday  night. 
But  compare  the  writing." 

He  compared  the  two,  with  a  slight  lifting  of 
his  eyebrows.  Then  he  put  them  down.  "Haw 
kins!"  he  said.  "Hawkins  has  the  letters!  And 
the  bag!" 

"Exactly,"  I  commented  dryly.  "In  other 
words,  Hawkins  was  in  Miss  Jeremy's  house 
when,  at  the  second  sitting,  she  told  of  the  let 
ters." 

I  felt  rather  sorry  for  Sperry.  He  paced  the 
room  wretchedly,  the  two  letters  in  his  hand. 

"But  why  should  he  tell  her,  if  he  did?"  he 
demanded.  "The  writer  of  that  anonymous  let 
ter  was  writing  for  only  one  person.  Every  effort 
is  made  to  conceal  his  identity." 

I  felt  that  he  was  right.  The  point  was  well 
taken. 

"The  question  now  is,  to  whom  was  it  written  ?" 

We  pondered  that,  to  no  effect.  That  Hawkins 
had  certain  letters  which  touched  on  the  Wells 
affair,  that  they  were  probably  in  his  possession 
in  the  Connell  house,  was  clear  enough.  But  we 
had  no  possible  authority  for  trying  to  get  the 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 121 

letters,  although  Sperry  was  anxious  to  make  the 
attempt. 

"Although  I  feel,"  he  said,  "that  it  is  too  late 
to  help  her  very  much.  She  is  innocent;  I  know 
that.  I  think  you  know  that,  too,  deep  in  that 
legal  mind  of  yours.  It  is  wrong  to  discredit  her 
because  I  did  a  foolish  thing."  He  warmed  to 
his  argument.  "Why,  think,  man/'  he  said. 
"The  whole  first  sitting  was  practically  coinci 
dent  with  the  crime  itself." 

It  was  true  enough.  Whatever  suspicion 
might  be  cast  on  the  second  seance,,  the  first  at 
least  remained  inexplicable,  by  any  laws  we  rec 
ognized.  In  a  way,  I  felt  sorry  for  Sperry.  Here 
he  was,  on  the  first  day  of  his  engagement,  pro 
testing  her  honesty,  her  complete  ignorance  of 
the  revelations  she  had  made  and  his  intention 
to  keep  her  in  ignorance,  and  yet  betraying  his 
own  anxiety  and  possible  doubt  in  the  same 
breath. 

"She  did  not  even  know  there  was  a  family 
named  Wells.  When  I  said  that  Hawkins  had 
been  employed  by  the  Wells,  it  meant  nothing  to 
her.  I  was  watching." 

So  even  Sperry  was  watching.  He  was  in  love 
with  her.,  but  his  scientific  mind,  like  my  legal 
one,  was  slow  to  accept  what  during  the  past  two 
weeks  it  had  been  asked  to  accept. 


122  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

I  left  him  at  ten  o'clock.  Mrs.  Dane  was  still 
at  her  window,  and  her  far-sighted  old  eyes 
caught  me  as  I  tried  to  steal  past.  She  rapped 
on  the  window,  and  I  was  obliged  to  go  in. 
Obliged,  too,  to  tell  her  of  the  discovery  and,  at 
last,  of  Hawkins  being  in  the  Connell  house. 

"I  want  those  letters,  Horace,,"  she  said  at  last. 

"So  do  I.    I'm  not  going  to  steal  them." 

"The  question  is,  where  has  he  got  them?" 

"The  question  is,  dear  lady,  that  they  are  not 
ours  to  take." 

"They  are  not  his,  either." 

Well,  that  was  true  enough.  But  I  had  done 
all  the  private  investigating  I  cared  to.  And  I 
told  her  so.  She  only  smiled  cryptically.  .  .  . 

So  far  as  I  know,,  Mrs.  Dane  was  the  only  one 
among  us  who  had  entirely  escaped  certain 
strange  phenomena  during  that  period,  and  as  I 
have  only  so  far  recorded  my  own  experiences, 
I  shall  here  place  in  order  the  various  manifesta 
tions  made  to  the  other  members  of  the  Neighbor 
hood  Club  during  that  trying  period  and  in  their 
own  words.  As  none  of  them  have  suffered  since, 
a  certain  allowance  must  be  made  for  our  nervous 
strain.  As  before,  I  shall  offer  no  explanation. 

Alice  Robinson:  On  night  following  second 
seance  saw  a  light  in  room,  not  referable  to  any 
outside  influence.  Was  an  amorphous  body 


SIGHT  UNSEEN  123 

which  glowed  pallidly  and  moved  about  wall  over 
fireplace,  gradually  coming  to  stop  in  a  corner, 
where  it  faded  and  disappeared. 

Clara ,  Mrs.  Dane's  secretary:  Had  not 

slept  much  since  first  seance.  Was  frequently 
conscious  that  she  was  not  alone  in  room,  but  on 
turning  on  light  room  was  always  empty.  Wak 
ened  twice  with  sense  of  extreme  cold.  (I  have 
recorded  my  own  similar  experience.) 

Sperry  has  consistently  maintained  that  he  had 
no  experiences  whatever  during  that  period,  but 
admits  that  he  heard  various  knock'ihgs  in  his 
bedroom  at  night,  which  he  attributed  to  the 
lighting  of  his  furnace,  and  the  resulting  expan 
sion  of  the  furniture  due  to  heat. 

Herbert  Robinson:  Herbert  was  the  most 
difficult  member  of  the  Club  from  whom  to  secure 
data,  but  he  has  recently  confessed  that  he  was 
wakened  one  night  by  the  light  falling  on  to  his 
bed  from  a  picture  which  hung  on  the  \vall  over 
his  mantelpiece.,  and  which  stood  behind  a  clock, 
two  glass  vases  and  a  pair  of  candlesticks.  The 
door  of  his  room  was  locked  at  the  time. 

Mrs.  Johnson:  Had  a  great  many  minor  dis 
turbances,  so  that  on  rousing  one  night  to  find 
me  closing  a  window  against  a  storm  she  thought 
I  was  a  spectre,  and  to  this  day  insists  that  I 
only  entered  her  room  when  I  heard  her  scream. 


124 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

For  this  reason  I  have  made  no  record  of  her 
various  experiences,  as  I  felt  that  her  nervous 
condition  precluded  accurate  observation. 

As  in  all  records  of  psychic  phenomena,  the 
human  element  must  be  considered,  and  I  do  not 
attempt  either  to  analyze  these  various  phenom 
ena  or  to  explain  them.  Herbert,  for  instance, 
has  been  known  to  walk  in  his  sleep.  But  I 
respectfully  offer,  as  opposed  to  this,  that  my 
watch  has  never  been  known  to  walk  at  all,  and 
that  Mrs.  Johnson's  bracelet  could  hardly  be 
accused  of  an  attack  of  nerves. 


IX 

The  following  day  was  Monday.  When  I 
came  downstairs  I  found  a  neat  bundle  lying  in 
the  hall,,  and  addressed  to  me^  My  wife  had  fol 
lowed  me  down,  and  we  surveyed  it  together. 

I  had  a  curious  feeling  about  the  parcel,  and 
was  for  cutting  the  cord  with  my  knife.  But  my 
wife  is  careful  about  string.  She  has  always 
fancied  that  the  time  would  come  when  we  would 
need  some  badly,  and  it  would  not  be  around. ,..! 
have  an  entire  drawer  of  my  chiffonier,  which  I 
really  need  for  other  uses,  filled  with  bundles  of 
twine.,  pink,  white  and  brown.  I  recall,  on  one 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 125 

occasion,  packing  a  suit-case  in  the  dusk,  in  great 
haste,  and  emptying  the  drawer  containing  my 
undergarments  into  it,  to  discover,  when  I  opened 
it  on  the  train  for  my  pajamas,  nothing  but  rolls 
of  cord  and  several  packages  of  Christmas  rib 
bons.^  So  I~was  obliged  to  wait  until  she  had 
untied  the  knots  by  means  of  a  hairpin. 

It  was  my  overcoat !  My  overcoat,  apparently 
uninjured,  but  with  the  collection  of  keys  I  had 
made  missing. 

The  address  was  printed,,  not  written,  in  a 
large,  strong  hand,  with  a  stub  pen.  I  did  not, 
at  the  time,  notice  the  loss  of  certain  papers  which 
had  been  in  the  breast  pocket.  I  am  rather 
absent-minded,  and  it  was  not  until  the  night 
after  the  third  sitting  that  they  were  recalled  to 
my  mind. 

At  something  after  eleven  Herbert  Robinson 
called  me  up  at  my  office.  He  was  at  Sperry's 
house,,  Sperry  having  been  his  physician  during 
his  recent  illness. 

"I  say,  Horace,  this  is  Herbert." 

"Yes.    How  are  you?" 

"Doing  well,  Sperry  says.  I'm  at  his  place 
now.  I'm  speaking  for  him.  He's  got  a  patient." 

"Yes." 

"You  were  here  last  night,  he  says."  Herbert 
has  a  circumlocutory  manner  over  the  phone 


126 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

which  irritates  me.  He  begins  slowly  and  does 
not  know  how  to  stop.  Talk  with  him  drags  on 
endlessly. 

"Well,  I  admit  it,"  I  snapped.  "It's  not  a 
secret." 

He  lowered  his  voice.  "Do  you  happen  to  have 
noticed  a  walking-stick  in  the  library  when  you 
were  here?" 

"Which  walking-stick?" 

"You  know.    The  one  we " 

"Yes.    I  saw  it." 

"You  didn't,  by  any  chance,  take  it  home  with 
you?" 

"No." 

"Are  you  sure?" 

"Certainly  I'm  sure." 

"You  are  an  absent-minded  beggar,  you  know," 
he  explained.  "You  remember  about  the  fire- 
tongs.  And  a  stick  is  like  an  umbrella.  One  is 
likely  to  pick  it  up  and " 

"One  is  not  likely  to  do  anything  of  the  sort. 
At  least,  I  didn't." 

"Oh,  all  right.     Every  one  well?" 

"Very  well,,  thanks." 

"Suppose  we'll  see  you  tonight?" 

"Not  unless  you  ring  off  and  let  me  do  some 
work,"  I  said  irritably. 

He  rang  off.     I  was  ruffled,  I  admit;  but  I 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 127 

was  uneasy,  also.  To  tell  the  truth,  the  affair  of 
the  fire-tongs  had  cost  me  my  self-confidence.  I 
called  up  my  wife,  and  she  said  Herbert  was  a 
fool  and  Sperry  also.  But  she  made  an  exhaus 
tive  search  of  the  premises,  without  result.  Who 
ever  had  taken  the  stick,  I  was  cleared.  Cleared, 
at  least,  for  a  time.  There  were  strange  develop 
ments  coming  that  threatened  my  peace  of  mind. 

It  was  that  day  that  I  discovered  that  I  was 
being  watched.  Shadowed,  I  believe  is  the  tech 
nical  word.  I  daresay  I  had  been  followed  from 
my  house,  but  I  had  not  noticed.  When  I  went 
out  to  lunch  a  youngish  man  in  a  dark  overcoat 
was  waiting  for  the  elevator,  and  I  saw  him  again 
when  I  came  out  of  my  house.  We  went  down 
town  again  on  the  same  car. 

Perhaps  I  would  have  thought  nothing  of  it, 
had  I  not  been  summoned  to  the  suburbs  on  a 
piece  of  business  concerning  a  mortgage.  He 
was  at  the  far  end  of  the  platform  as  I  took  the 
train  to  return  to  the  city,  with  his  back  to  me. 
I  lost  him  in  the  crowd  at  the  downtown  station, 
but  he  evidently  had  not  lost  me,  for,  stopping 
to  buy  a  newspaper,  I  turned,  and,  as  my  pause 
had  evidently  been  unexpected,  he  almost  ran 
into  me. 

With  that  tendency  of  any  man  who  finds  him 
self  under  suspicion  to  search  his  past  for  some 


128 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

dereliction,  possibly  forgotten,  I  puzzled  over  the 
situation  for  some  time  that  afternoon.  I  did 
not  connect  it  with  the  Wells  case,  for  in  that 
matter  I  was  indisputably  the  hunter,  not  the 
hunted. 

Although  I  found  no  explanation  for  the  mat 
ter,  I  did  not  tell  my  wife  that  evening.  Women 
are  strange  and  she  would,  I  feared,  immediately 
jump  to  the  conclusion  that  there  was  something 
in  my  private  life  that  I  was  keeping  from  her. 

Almost  all  women,  I  have  found,,  although  "not 
over-conscious  themselves  of  the  charm  and  at 
traction  of  their  husbands,  are  of  the  conviction 
that  these  husbands  exert  a  dangerous  fascina 
tion  over  other  women,  and  that  this  charm, 
which  does  not  reveal  itself  in  the  home  circle,  is 
used  abroad  with  occasionally  disastrous  effect. 

My  preoccupation,  however,  did  not  escape 
my  wife,,  and  she  commented  on  it  at  dinner. 

"You  are  generally  dull,  Horace,"  she  said, 
"but  tonight  you  are  deadly." 

After  dinner  I  went  into  our  reception  room, 
which  is  not  lighted  unless  we  are  expecting 
guests,  and  peered  out  of  the  window.  The  detec 
tive,  or  whoever  he  might  be,  was  walking  negli 
gently  up  the  street. 

As  that  was  the  night  of  the  third  seance,  I  find 
that  my  record  covers  the  fact  that  Mrs.  Dane 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 129 

was  housecleaning,  for  which  reason  we  had  not 
been  asked  to  dinner,  that  my  wife  and  I  dined 
early,  at  six-thirty,  and  that  it  was  seven  o'clock 
when  Sperry  called  me  by  telephone. 

"Can  you  come  to  my  office  at  once?"  he  asked. 
"I  dare  say  Airs.  Johnson  won't  mind  going  to 
the  Dane  house  alone.'* 

"Is  there  anything  new?" 

"No.  But  I  want  to  get  into  the  Wells  house 
again.  Bring  the  keys." 

"They  were  in  the  overcoat.  It  came  back 
today,  but  the  keys  are  missing." 

"Did  you  lock  the  back  door?" 

"I  don't  remember.  No,  of  course  not.  I 
didn't  have  the  keys." 

"Then  there's  a  chance,"  he  observed,  after  a 
moment's  pause.  "Anyhow,  it's  worth  trying. 
Herbert  told  you  about  the  stick?" 

"Yes.    I  never  had  it,  Sperry." 

Fortunately,  during  this  conversation  my  wife 
was  upstairs  dressing.  I  knew  quite  well  that 
she  would  violently  oppose  a  second  visit  on  my 
part  to  the  deserted  house  down  the  street.  I 
therefore  left  a  message  for  her  that  I  had  gone 
on,  and,  finding  the  street  clear,  met  Sperry  at 
his  door-step. 

"This  is  the  last  sitting,  Horace,"  he  explained, 
"and  I  feel  we  ought  to  have  the  most  complete 


130 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

possible  knowledge,  beforehand.  We  will  be  in 
a  better  position  to  understand  what  comes. 
There  are  two  or  three  things  we  haven't  checked 
up  on." 

He  slipped  an  arm  through  mine,  and  we 
started  down  the  street.  "I'm  going  to  get  to 
the  bottom  of  this,  Horace,  old  dear,"  he  said. 

"Remember,,  we're  pledged  to  a  psychic  inves 
tigation  only." 

"Rats !"  he  said  rudely.  "We  are  going  to  find 
out  who  killed  Arthur  Wells,  and  if  he  deserves 
hanging  we'll  hang  him." 

"Or  her?" 

"It  wasn't  Elinor  Wells,"  he  said  positively. 
"Here's  the  point:  if  he's  been  afraid  to  go  back 
for  his  overcoat  it's  still  there.  I  don't  expect 
that,  however.  But  the  thing  about  the  curtain 
interests  me.  I've  been  reading  over  my  copy  of 
the  notes  on  the  sittings.  It  was  said,  you  re 
member,  that  curtains — some  curtains — would 
have  been  better  places  to  hide  the  letters  than  the 
bag." 

I  stopped  suddenly.  "By  jove,  Sperry,"  I  said. 
"I  remember  now.  My  notes  of  the  sittings  were 
in  my  overcoat." 

"And  they  are  gone?" 

"They  are  gone." 

He  whistled  softly.     "That's  unfortunate,"  he 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 131 

said.  'Then  the  other  person,  whoever  he  is, 
knows  what  we  know !" 

He  was  considerably  startled  when  I  told  him 
I  had  been  shadowed,  and  insisted  that  it  referred 
directly  to  the  case  in  hand.  "He's  got  your 
notes,"  he  said,  "and  he's  got  to  know  what  your 
next  move  is  going  to  be." 

His  intention,  I  found,  was  to  examine  the  car 
pet  outside  of  the  dressing-room  door,  and  the 
floor  beneath  it,  to  discover  if  possible  whether 
Arthur  Wells  had  fallen  there  and  been  moved. 

"Because  I  think  you  are  right,"  he  said.  "He 
wouldn't  have  been  likely  to  shoot  himself  in  a 
hall,  and  because  the  very  moving  of  the  body 
would  be  in  itself  suspicious.  Then  I  want  to 
look  at  the  curtains.  'The  curtains  would  have 
been  safer/  Safer  for  what?  For  the  bag  with 
the  letters,  probably,  for  she  followed  that  with 
the  talk  about  Hawkins.  He'd  got  them,  and 
somebody  was  afraid  he  had." 

"Just  where  does  Hawkins  come  in,  Sperry  ?"  I 
asked. 

"I'm  damned  if  I  know./'  he  reflected.  "We 
may  learn  tonight." 

The  Wells  house  was  dark  and  forbidding. 
We  walked  past  it  once,  as  an  officer  was  making 
his  rounds  in  leisurely  fashion,  swinging  his 
night-stick  in  circles.  But  on  our  return  the 


132  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

street  was  empty,  and  we  turned  in  at  the  side 
entry. 

I  led  the  way  with  comparative  familiarity. 
It  was,  you  will  remember,  my  third  similar  ex 
cursion.  With  Sperry  behind  me  I  felt  confident. 

"In  case  the  door  is  locked,  I  have  a  few  skele 
ton  keys,"  said  Sperry. 

We  had  reached  the  end  of  the  narrow  pas 
sage,  and  emerged  into  the  square  of  brick  and 
grass  that  lay  behind  the  house.  While  the  night 
was  clear,  the  place  lay  in  comparative  darkness. 
Sperry  stumbled  over  something,  and  muttered 
to  himself. 

The  rear  porch  lay  in  deep  shadow.  We  went 
up  the  steps  together.  Then  Sperry  stopped,  and 
I  advanced  to  the  doorway.  It  was  locked. 

With  my  hand  on  the  door-knob,  I  turned  to 
Sperry.  He  was  struggling  violently  with  a  dark 
figure,  and  even  as  I  turned  they  went  over  with  a 
crash  and  rolled  together  down  the  steps.  Only 
one  of  them  rose. 

I  was  terrified.  I  confess  it.  It  was  impos 
sible  to  see  whether  it  was  Sperry  or  his  assailant. 
If  it  was  Sperry  who  lay  in  a  heap  on  the  ground, 
I  felt  that  I  was  lost.  I  could  not  escape.  The 
way  was  blocked,  and  behind  me  the  door,  to 
which  I  now  turned  frantically,  was  a  barrier  I 
could  not  move. 


SIGHT  UNSEEN  133 

Then,  out  of  the  darkness  behind  me,  came 
Sperry's  familiar,  booming  bass.  "I've  knocked 
him  out,  I'm  afraid.  Got  a  match,  Horace?" 

Much  shaken,  I  went  down  the  steps  and  gave 
Sperry  a  wooden  toothpick,  under  the  impression 
that  it  was  a  match.  That  rectified,  we  bent  over 
the  figure  on  the  bricks. 

"Knocked  out,  for  sure,"  said  Sperry,  "but  I 
think  it's  not  serious.  A  watchman,  I  suppose. 
Poor  devil,  we'll  have  to  get  him  into  the  house." 

The  lock  gave  way  to  manipulation  at  last,  and 
the  door  swung  open.  There  came  to  us  the 
heavy  odor  of  all  closed  houses,  a  combination  of 
carpets,  cooked  food,  and  floor  wax.  My  nerves, 
now  taxed  to  their  utmost,  fairly  shrank  from  it, 
but  Sperry  was  cool. 

He  bore  the  brunt  of  the  weight  as  we  carried 
the  watchman  in,  holding  him  with  his  arms  dan 
gling,  helpless  and  rather  pathetic.  Sperry 
glanced  around. 

"Into  the  kitchen,"  he  said.     "We  can  lock  him 


in." 


We  had  hardly  laid  him  on  the  floor  when  I 
heard  the  slow  stride  of  the  officer  of  the  beat. 
He  had  turned  into  the  paved  alley-way,  and 
was  advancing  with  measured,  ponderous  steps. 
Fortunately  I  am  an  agile  man,  and  thus  I  was 
able  to  get  to  the  outer  door,  reverse  the  key 


134 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

and  turn  it  from  the  inside,  before  I  heard  him 
hailing  the  watchman. 

"Hello  there!"  he  called.  "George,  I  say! 
George!" 

He  listened  for  a  moment,  then  came  up  and 
tried  the  door.  I  crouched  inside,  as  guilty  as 
the  veriest  house-breaker  in  the  business.  But 
he, had  no  suspicion,  clearly,  for  he  turned  and 
went  away,  whistling  as  he  wrent. 

Not  until  we  heard  him  going  down  the  street 
again,  absently  running  his  night-stick  along  the 
fence  palings,,  did  Sperry  or  I  move. 

"A  narrow  squeak,  that,"  I  said,  mopping  my 
face. 

"A  miss  is  as  good  as  a  mile,"  he  observed,  and 
there  was  a  sort  of  exultation  in  his  voice.  He 
is  a  born  adventurer. 

He  came  out  into  the  passage  and  quickly 
locked  the  door  behind  him. 

"Now,  friend  Horace,"  he  said,  "if  you  have 
anything  but  toothpicks  for  matches,  we  will  look 
for  the  overcoat,  and  then  we  will  go  upstairs." 

"Suppose  he  wakens  and  raises  an  alarm?" 

"We'll  be  out  of  luck.     That's  all." 

As  we  had  anticipated,  there  was  no  overcoat 
in  the  library,  and  after  listening  a  moment  at 
the  kitchen  door,  we  ascended  a  rear  staircase 
to  the  upper  floor.  I  had,  it  will  be  remembered, 


SIGHT  UNSEEN  135 

fallen  from  a  chair  on  a  table  in  the  dressing 
room,  and  had  left  them  thus  overturned  when  I 
charged  the  third  floor.  The  room,  however,  was 
now  in  perfect  order,  and  when  I  held  my  candle 
to  the  ceiling,  I  perceived  that  the  bullet  hole  had 
again  been  repaired,  and  this  time  with  such  skill 
that  I  could  not  even  locate  it. 

"We  are  up  against  some  one  cleverer  than  we 
are,  Sperry,"  I  acknowledged. 

"And  who  has  more  to  lose  than  we  have  to 
gain,"  he  aded  cheerfully.  "Don't  worry  about 
that,  Horace.  You're  a  married  man  and  I'm 
not.  If  a  woman  wanted  to  hide  some  letters 
from  her  husband,  and  chose  a  curtain  for  a  re 
ceptacle,  what  room  would  she  hide  them  in. 
Not  in  his  dressing-room,  eh?" 

He  took  the  candle  and  led  the  way  to  Elinor 
Wells's  bedroom.  Here,  however,  the  draperies 
were  down,  and  we  would  have  been  at  a  loss,  had 
I  not  remembered  my  wife's  custom  of  folding 
draperies  when  we  close  the  house,  and  placing 
them  under  the  dusting  sheets  which  cover  the 
various  beds. 

Our  inspection  of  the  curtains  was  hurried, 
and  broken  by  various  excursions  on  my  part  to 
listen  for  the  watchman.  But  he  remained  quiet 
below,  and  finally  we  found  what  we  were  looking 


136  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

for.     In  the  lining  of  one  of  the  curtains,  near 
the  bottom,  a  long,  ragged  cut  had  been  made. 

"Cut  in  a  hurry,  with  curved  scissors/'  was 
Sperry's    comment.     "Probably   manicure    scis 


sors." 


The  result  was  a  sort  of  pocket  in  the  curtain, 
concealed  on  the  chintz  side,  which  was  the  side 
which  would  hang  toward  the  room. 

"Probably,"  he  said,  "the  curtain  would  have 
been  better.  It  would  have  stayed  anyhow. 
Whereas  the  bag "  He  was  flushed  with  tri 
umph.  "How  in  the  world  would  Hawkins  know 
that?"  he  demanded.  "You  can  talk  all  you  like. 
She's  told  us  things  that  no  one  ever  told  her." 

Before  examining  the  floor  in  the  hall  I  went 
downstairs  and  listened  outside  the  kitchen  door. 
The  watchman  was  stirring  inside  the  room,  and 
groaning  occasionally.  Sperry,  however,  when 
I  told  him,  remained  cool  and  in  his  exultant 
mood,  and  I  saw  that  he  meant  to  vindicate  Miss 
Jeremy  if  he  flung  me  into  jail  and  the  newspapers 
while  doing  it. 

"We'll  have  a  go  at  the  floors  under  the  carpets 
now,"  he  said.  "If  he  gets  noisy,  you  can  go 
down  with  the  fire-tongs.  I  understand  you  are 
an  expert  with  them." 

The  dressing-room  had  a  large  rug,  like  the 
nursery  above  it,  and  turning  back  the  carpet  was 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 137 

a  simple  matter.  There  had  been  a  stain  be 
neath  where  the  dead  man's  head  had  lain,  but 
it  had  been  scrubbed  and  scraped  away.  The 
boards  were  white  for  an  area-  of  a  square  foot 
or  so. 

Sperry  eyed  the  spot  with  indifference.  "Not 
essential,"  he  said.  ''Shows  good  housekeeping. 
That's  all.  The  point  is,  are  there  other  spots?" 

And,  after  a  time,  we  found  what  we  were 
after.  The  upper  hall  was  carpeted,  and  my  pen 
knife  came  into  requisition  to  lift  the  tacks.  They 
came  up  rather  easily,  as  if  but  recently  put  in. 
That,  indeed,  proved  to  be  the  case. 

Just  outside  the  dressing-room  door  the  boards 
for  an  area  of  two  square  feet  or  more  beneath 
the  carpet  had  been  scraped  and  scrubbed.  With 
the  lifting  of  the  carpet  came,  too,  a  strong  odor, 
as  of  ammonia.  But  the  stain  of  blood  had  ab 
solutely  disappeared. 

Sperry,  kneeling  on  the  floor  with  the  candle 
held  close,  examined  the  wood.  "Not  only 
scrubbed,"  he  said,  "but  scraped  down,  probably 
with  a  floor-scraper.  It's  pretty  clear,  Horace. 
The  poor  devil  fell  here.  There  was  a  struggle, 
and  he  went  down.  He  lay  there  for  a  while,  too, 
until  some  plan  was  thought  out.  A  man  does 
not  usually  kill  himself  in  a  hallway.  It's  a  sort 
of  solitary  deed.  He  fell  here,  and  was  dragged 


138 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

into  the  room.  The  angle  of  the  bullet  in  the 
ceiling  would  probably  show  it  came  from  here, 
too,  and  went  through  the  doorway." 

We  were  startled  at  that  moment  by  a  loud 
banging  below.  Sperry  leaped  to  his  feet  and 
caught  up  his  hat. 

"The  watchman,"  he  said.  "We'd  better  get 
out.  He'll  have  all  the  neighbors  in  at  that  rate." 

He  was  still  hammering  on  the  door  as  we  went 
down  the  rear  stairs,  and  Sperry  stood  outside 
the  door  and  to  one  side. 

"Keep  out  of  range,,  Horace,"  he  cautioned 
me.  And  to  the  watchman: 

"Now,  George,  we  will  put  the  key  under  the 
door,  and  in  ten  minutes  you  may  come  out. 
Don't  come  sooner.  I've  warned  you." 

By  the  faint  light  from  outside  I  could  see  him 
stooping,  not  in  front  of  the  door,  but  behind  it. 
And  it  was  well  he  did,  for  the  moment  the  key 
was  on  the  other  side,  a  shot  zipped  through  one 
of  the  lower  panels.  I  had  not  expected  it,  and 
it  set  me  to  shivering. 

"No  more  of  that,  George,"  said  Sperry  calmly 
and  cheerfully.  "This  is  a  quiet  neighborhood, 
and  we  don't  like  shooting.  What  is  more,  my 
friend  here  is  very  expert  with  his  own  particular 
weapon,  and  at  any  moment  he  may  go  to  the  fire 
place  in  the  library  and " 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 139 

I  have  no  idea  why  Sperry  chose  to  be  face 
tious  at  that  time,  and  my  resentment  rises  as  I 
record  it.  For  when  we  reached  the  yard  we 
heard  the  officer  running  along  the  alley-way, 
calling  as  he  ran. 

"The  fence.,  quick,"  Sperry  said. 

I  am  not  very  good  at  fences,  as  a  rule,  but  I 
leaped  that  one  like  a  cat,  and  came  down  in  a 
barrel  of  waste-paper  on  the  other  side.  Getting 
me  out  was  a  breathless  matter,  finally  accom 
plished  by  turning  the  barrel  over  so  that  I  could 
crawl  out.  We  could  hear  the  excited  voices  of 
the  two  men  beyond  the  fence,  and  we  ran.  I 
was  better  than  Sperry  at  that.  I  ran  like  a  rab 
bit.  I  never  even  felt  my  legs.  And  Sperry 
pounded  on  behind  me. 

We  heard,  behind  us,  one  of  the  men  climbing 
the  fence.  But  in  jumping  down  he  seemed  to 
have  struck  the  side  of  the  overturned  barrel. 
Probably  it  rolled  and  threw  him,  for  that  part 
of  my  mind  which  was  not  intent  on  flight  heard 
him  fall,  and  curse  loudly. 

"Go  to  it,"  Sperry  panted  behind  me.  "Roll 
over  and  break  your  neck." 

This,  I  need  hardly  explain,  was  meant  for  our 
pursuer. 

We  turned  a  corner  and  were  out  on  one  of  the 
main  thoroughfares.  Instantly,  so  innate  is  cun- 


140  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

ning  to  the  human  brain,,  we  fell  to  walking  se 
dately. 

It  was  as  well  that  we  did,  for  we  had  not  gone 
a  half  block  before  we  saw  our  policeman  again, 
lumbering  toward  us  and  blowing  a  whistle  as 
he  ran. 

"Stop  and  get  this  street-car/'  Sperry  directed 
me.  "And  don't  breathe  so  hard." 

The  policeman  stared  at  us  fixedly,  stopping  to 
do  so,  but  all  he  saw  was  two  well-dressed  and 
professional-looking  men,  one  of  them  rather 
elderly  who  was  hailing  a  street-car.  I  had  the 
presence  of  mind  to  draw  my  watch  and  consult  it. 

"Just  in  good  time/'  I  said  distinctly,  and  we 
mounted  the  car  step.  Sperry  remained  on  the 
platform  and  lighted  a  cigar.  This  gave  him  a 
chance  to  look  back. 

"Rather  narrow  squeak,  that/'  he  observed,  as 
he  came  in  and  sat  down  beside  me.  "Your  gray 
hairs  probably  saved  us." 

I  was  quite  numb  from  the  waist  down,  from 
my  tumble  and  from  running,  and  it  was  some 
time  before  I  could  breathe  quietly.  Suddenly 
Sperry  fell  to  laughing. 

"I  wish  you  could  have  seen  yourself  in  that 
barrel,  and  crawling  out,"  he  said. 

We  reached  Mrs.  Dane's,,  to  find  that  Miss 
Jeremy  had  already  arrived,  looking  rather  pale, 


SIGHT  UNSEEN  141 

as  I  had  noticed  she  always  did  before  a  seance. 
Her  color  had  faded,  and  her  eyes  seemed  sunken 
in  her  head. 

"Not  ill,  are  you?"  Sperry  asked  her,  as  he 
took  her  hand. 

"Not  at  all.  But  I  am  anxious.  I  always  am. 
These  things  do  not  come  for  the  calling." 

"This  is  the  last  time.    You  have  promised." 

"Yes.     The  last  time." 


It  appeared  that  Herbert  Robinson  had  been 
reading,  during  his  convalescence,  a  considerable 
amount  of  psychic  literature,  and  that  we  were 
to  hold  this  third  and  final  sitting  under  test  con 
ditions.  As  before,  the  room  had  been  stripped 
of  furniture,  and  the  cloth  and  rod  which  formed 
the  low  screen  behind  Miss  Jeremy's  chair  were 
not  of  her  own  providing,  but  Herbert's. 

He  had  also  provided,  for  some  reason  or  other, 
eight  small  glass  cups,  into  which  he  placed  the 
legs  of  the  two  tables,  and  in  a  business-like  man 
ner  he  set  out  on  the  large  stand  a  piece  of  white 
paper,  a  pencil,  and  a  spool  of  black  thread.  It 
is  characteristic  of  Miss  Jeremy,  and  of  her  own 
ignorance  of  the  methods  employed  in  profes- 


142 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

sional  seances,,  that  she  was  as  much  interested 
and  puzzled  as  we  were. 

When  he  had  completed  his  preparations,  Her 
bert  made  a  brief  speech. 

"Members  of  the  Neighborhood  Club,"  he  said 
impressively,  "we  have  agreed  among  ourselves 
that  this  is  to  be  our  last  meeting  for  the  purpose 
that  is  before  us.  I  have  felt,  therefore,  that  in 
justice  to  the  medium  this  final  seance  should 
leave  us  with  every  conviction  of  its  genuineness. 
Whatever  phenomena  occur,  the  medium  must  be, 
as  she  has  been,  above  suspicion.  For  the  replies 
of  her  'control/  no  particular  precaution  seems 
necessary,  or  possible.  But  the  first  seance 
divided  itself  into  two  parts:  an  early  period 
when,  so  far  as  we  could  observe,  the  medium 
was  at  least  partly  conscious,,  possibly  fully  so, 
when  physical  demonstrations  occurred.  And  a 
second,  or  trance  period,  during  which  we  re 
ceived  replies  to  questions.  It  is  for  the  physical 
phenomena  that  I  am  about  to  take  certain  pre 
cautions." 

"Are  you  going  to  tie  me?"  Miss  Jeremy  asked. 

"Do  you  object?" 

"Not  at  all.     But  with  what  ?" 

"With  silk  thread,"  Herbert  said,  smilingly. 

She  held  out  her  wrists  at  once,  but  Herbert 
placed  her  in  her  chair,  and  proceeded  to  wrap 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 143 

her,  chair  and  all,  in  a  strong  network  of  fine 
threads,  drawn  sufficiently  taut  to  snap  with  any 
movement. 

He  finished  by  placing  her  feet  on  the  sheet  of 
paper,  and  outlining  their  position  there  with  a 
pencil  line. 

The  proceedings  were  saved  from  absurdity 
by  what  we  all  felt  was  the  extreme  gravity  of  the 
situation.  There  were  present  in  the  room  Mrs. 
Dane,  the  Robinsons,  Sperry,  my  wife  and  my 
self.  Clara,  Mrs.  Dane's  secretary,  had  begged 
off  on  the  plea  of  nervousness  from  the  earlier 
and  physical  portion  of  the  seance,  and  was  to 
remain  outside  in  the  hall  until  the  trance  com 
menced. 

Sperry  objected  to  this,  as  movement  in  the  cir 
cle  during  the  trance  had,  in  the  first  seance,  in 
duced  fretful  uneasiness  in  the  medium.  But 
Clara,,  appealed  to,  begged  to  be  allowed  to  remain 
outside  until  she  was  required,  and  showed  such 
unmistakable  nervousness  that  we  finally  agreed. 

"Would  a  slight  noise  disturb  her?"  Mrs.  Dane 
asked. 

Miss  Jeremy  thought  not,  if  the  circle  remained 
unbroken,  and  Mrs.  Dane  considered. 

"Bring  me  my  stick  from  the  hall,  Horace/* 
she  said.  "And  tell  Clara  I'll  rap  on  the  floor 
with  it  when  1  want  her." 


144 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

I  found  a  stick  in  the  rack  outside  and  brought 
it  in.  The  lights  were  still  on  in  the  chandelier 
overhead,  and  as  I  gave  the  stick  to  Mrs.  Dane 
I  heard  Sperry  speaking  sharply  behind  me. 

"Where  did  you  get  that  stick?"  he  demanded. 

"In  the  hall.     I " 

"I  never  saw  it  before,"  said  Mrs.  Dane.  "Per 
haps  it  is  Herbert's." 

But  I  caught  Sperry's  eye.  We  had  both  rec 
ognized  it.  It  was  Arthur  Wells's,  the  one  which 
Sperry  had  taken  from  his  room,  and  which,  in 
turn,  had  been  taken  from  Sperry's  library. 

Sperry  was  watching  me  with  a  sort  of  cynical 
amusement. 

"You're  an  absent-minded  beggar.,  Horace," 
he  said. 

"You  didn't,  by  any  chance,,  stop  here  on  your 
way  back  from  my  place  the  other  night,  did 
you?" 

"I  did.     But  I  didn't  bring  that  thing." 

"Look  here,  Horace,"  he  said,  more  gently, 
"you  come  in  and  see  me  some  day  soon.  You're 
not  as  fit  as  you  ought  to  be." 

I  confess  to  a  sort  of  helpless  indignation  that 
was  far  from  the  composure  the  occasion  re 
quired.  But  the  others,  I  believe,  were  fully  con 
vinced  that  no  human  agency  had  operated  to 
bring  the  stick  into  Mrs.  Dane's  house,  a  belief 


SIGHT  UNSEEN  145 

that  prepared  them  for  anything  that  might 
occur. 

A  number  of  things  occurred  almost  as  soon  as 
the  lights  were  out,  interrupting  a  train  of 
thought  in  which  I  saw  myself  in  the  first  stages 
of  mental  decay,  and  carrying  about  the  streets 
not  only  fire-tongs  and  walking-sticks,  but  other 
portable  property  belonging  to  my  friends. 

Perhaps  my  excitement  had  a  bad  effect  on  the 
medium.  She  was  uneasy  and  complained  that 
the  threads  that  bound  her  arms  were  tight.  She 
was  distinctly  fretful.  But  after  a  time  she  set 
tled  down  in  her  chair.  Her  figure,  a  deeper 
shadow  in  the  semi-darkness  of  the  room,  seemed 
sagged — seemed,  in  some  indefinable  way,  small 
er.  But  there  was  none  of  the  stertorous  breath 
ing  that  preceded  trance. 

Then,  suddenly,  a  bell  that  Sperry  had  placed 
on  the  stand  beyond  the  black  curtain  commenced 
to  ring.  It  rang  at  first  gently,  then  violently. 
It  made  a  hideous  clamor.  I  had  a  curious  sense 
that  it  was  ringing  up  in  the  air,  near  the  top  of 
the  curtain.  It  was  a  relief  to  have  it  thrown 
to  the  ground,  its  racket  silenced. 

Quite  without  warning,  immediately  after,  my 
chair  twisted  under  me.  "I  am  being  turned 
around,'*  I  said.,  in  a  low  tone.  "It  as  if  some 
thing  has  taken  hold  of  the  back  of  the  chair,  and 


146  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

is  twisting  it.  It  has  stopped  now/'  I  had  been 
turned  fully  a  quarter  round. 

For  fiv£  minutes,  by  the  luminous  dial  of  my 
watch  on  the  table  before  me,  nothing  further 
occurred,  except  that  the  black  curtain  appeared 
to  swell,  as  in  a  wind. 

"There  is  something  behind  it/'  Alice  Robinson 
said,  in  a  terrorized  tone.  "Something  behind  it, 
moving." 

"It  is  not  possible/'  Herbert  assured  her. 
"Nothing,  that  is — there  is  only  one  door,  and  it 
is  closed.  I  have  examined  the  walls  and  floor 
carefully." 

At  the  end  of  five  minutes  something  soft  and 
fragrant  fell  on  to  the  table  near  me.  I  had  not 
noticed  Herbert  when  he  placed  the  flowers  from 
Mrs.  Dane's  table  on  the  stand,  and  I  was  more 
startled  than  the  others.  Then  the  glass  prisms 
in  the  chandelier  over  our  heads  clinked  together, 
as  if  they  had  been  swept  by  a  finger.  More  of 
the  flowers  came.  We  were  pelted  with  them. 
And  into  the  quiet  that  followed  there  came  a 
light,  fine  but  steady  tattoo  on  the  table  in  our 
midst.  Then  at  last  silence,  and  the  medium  in 
deep  trance,  and  Mrs.  Dane  rapping  on  the  floor 
for  Clara. 

When  Clara  came  in,  Mrs.  Dane  told  her  to 
switch  on  the  lights.  Miss  Jeremy  had  dropped 


SIGHT  UNSEEN  147 

in  her  chair  until  the  silk  across  her  chest  was  held 
taut.  But  investigation  showed  that  none  of  the 
threads  were  broken  and  that  her  evening  slippers 
still  fitted  into  the  outline  on  the  paper  beneath 
them.  Without  getting  up,  Sperry  reached  to 
the  stand  behind  Miss  Jeremy,  and  brought  into 
view  a  piece  of  sculptor's  clay  he  had  placed 
there.  The  handle  of  the  bell  was  now  jammed 
into  the  mass.  He  had  only  time  to  show  it  to 
us  when  the  medium  began  to  speak. 

I  find,  on  re-reading  the  earlier  part  of  this 
record,  that  I  have  omitted  mention  of  Miss 
Jeremy's  "control."  So  suddenly  had  we  jumped, 
that  first  evening,  into  the  trail  that  led  us  to 
the  Wells  case,  that  beyond  the  rather  raucous 
"good-evening/'  and  possibly  the  extraneous  mat 
ter  referring  to  Mother  Goose  and  so  on,  we  had 
been  saved  the  usual  preliminary  patter  of  the 
average  control. 

On  this  night,  however,  we  were  obliged  to  sit 
impatiently  through  a  rambling  discourse,  given 
in  a  half-belligerent  manner,  on  the  deterioration 
of  moral  standards.  Re-reading  Clara's  notes,  I 
find  that  the  subject  matter  is  without  originality 
and  the  diction  inferior.  But  the  lecture  ceased 
abruptly,  and  the  time  for  questions  had  come. 

"Now,"  Herbert  said,  "we  want  you  to  go  back 


148  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

to  the  house  where  you  saw  the  dead  man  on  the 
floor.  You  know  his  name,  don't  you?" 

There  was  a  pause.  "Yes.  Of  course  I  do. 
A.  L.  Wells." 

Arthur  had  been  known  to  most  of  us  by  his 
Christian  name,  but  the  initials  were  correct. 

"How  do  you  know  it  is  an  L?" 

"On  letters/'  was  the  laconic  answer.  Then: 
"Letters,  letters,  who  has  the  letters  ?" 

"Do  you  know  whose  cane  this  is?" 

"Yes." 

"Will  you  tell  us?" 

Up  to  that  time  the  replies  had  come  easily  and 
quickly.  But  beginning  with  the  cane  question, 
the  medium  was  in  difficulties.  She  moved  un 
easily,  and  spoke  irritably.  The  replies  were 
slow  and  grudging.  Foreign  subjects  were  in 
troduced,  as  now. 

"Horace's  wife  certainly  bullies  him,"  said  the 
voice.  "He's  afraid  of  her.  And  the  fire-tongs 
— the  fire-tongs — the  fire-tongs !" 

"Whose  cane  is  this?"  Herbert  repeated. 

"Mr.  Ellingham's." 

This  created  a  profound  sensation. 

"How  do  you  know  that?" 

"He  carried  it  at  the  seashore.  He  wrote  in 
the  sand  with  it." 

"What  did  he  write?" 


SIGHT  UNSEEN  149 

"Ten  o'clock." 

"He  wrote  'ten  o'clock'  in  the  sand,  and  the 
waves  came  and  washed  it  away?" 

"Yes." 

"Horace,"  said  my  wife,  leaning  forward,  "why 
not  ask  her  about  that  stock  of  mine?  If  it  is 
going  down,  I  ought  to  sell,  oughtn't  I  ?" 

Herbert  eyed  her  with  some  exasperation. 

"We  are  here  to  make  a  serious  investigation," 
he  said.  "If  the  members  of  the  club  will  keep 
their  attention  on  what  we  are  doing,  we  may 
get  somewhere.  Now,"  to  the  medium,  "the  man 
is  dead,  and  the  revolver  is  beside  him.  Did  he 
kill  himself?" 

"No.  He  attacked  her  when  he  found  the 
letters." 

"And  she  shot  him?" 

"I  can't  tell  you  that." 

"Try  very  hard.     It  is  important." 

"I  don't  know,"  was  the  fretful  reply.  "She 
may  have.  She  hated  him.  I  don't  know.  She 
says  she  did." 

"She  says  she  killed  him?" 

But  there  was  no  reply  to  this,  although  Her 
bert  repeated  it  several  times. 

Instead,  the  voice  of  the  "control"  began  to 
recite  a  verse  of  poetry — a  cheap,  sentimental  bit 


150 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

of  trash.  It  was  maddening,  under  the  circum 
stances. 

"Do  you  know  where  the  letters  are?" 

"Hawkins  has  them." 

"They  were  not  hidden  in  the  curtain?"  This 
was  Sperry. 

"No.     The   police   might  have   searched   the 


room." 


"Where  were  these  letters?" 

There  was  no  direct  reply  to  this,  but  instead : 

"He  found  them  when  he  was  looking  for  his 
razorstrop.  They  were  in  the  top  of  a  closet. 
His  revolver  was  there,  too.  He  went  back  and 
got  it.  It  was  terrible." 

There  was  a  profound  silence,  followed  by  a 
slight  exclamation  from  Sperry  as  he  leaped  to 
his  feet.  The  screen  at  the  end  of  the  room, 
which  cut  off  the  light  fiom  Clara's  candle,  was 
toppling.  The  next  instant  it  fell,  and  we  saw 
Clara  sprawled  over  her  table,  in  a  dead  faint. 


XI 


In  this,,  the  final  chapter  of  the  record  of  these 
seances,  I  shall  give,  as  briefly  as  possible,  the 
events  of  the  day  following  the  third  sitting.  I 
shall  explain  the  mystery  of  Arthur  Wells's  death, 


SIGHT  UNSEEN  151 

and  I  shall  give  the  solution  arrived  at  by  the 
Neighborhood  Club  as  to  the  strange  communica 
tions  from  the  medium,  Miss  Jeremy,  now 
Sperry's  wife. 

But  there  are  some  things  I  cannot  explain. 
Do  our  spirits  live  on,  on  this  earth  plane,  now 
and  then  obedient  to  the  wills  of  those  yet  living? 
Is  death,  then,  only  a  gateway  into  higher  space, 
from  which,  through  the  open  door  of  a  "sen 
sitive"  mind,  we  may  be  brought  back  on  occasion 
to  commit  the  inadequate  absurdities  of  the  phys 
ical  seance? 

Or  is  Sperry  right,  and  do  certain  individuals 
manifest  powers  of  a  purely  physical  nature,  but 
powers  which  Sperry  characterizes  as  the  sur 
vival  of  some  long-lost  development  by  which  at 
one  time  we  knew  how  to  liberate  a  forgotten 
form  of  energy? 

Who  can  say?  We  do  not  know.  We  have 
had  to  accept  these  things  as  they  have  been  ac 
cepted  through  the  ages,  and  give  them  either  a 
spiritual  or  a  purely  natural  explanation,  as  our 
minds  happen  to  be  adventurous  or  analytic  in 
type. 

But  outside  of  the  purely  physical  phenomena 
of  those  seances,  we  are  provided  with  an  ex 
planation  which  satisfies  the  Neighborhood  Club, 
even  if  it  fails  to  satisfy  the  convinced  spiritist. 


152 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

We  have  been  accused  merely  of  substituting  one 
mystery  for  another,  but  I  reply  by  saying  that 
the  mystery  we  substitute  is  not  a  mystery,  but 
an  acknowledged  fact. 

On  Tuesday  morning  I  wakened  after  an  un 
easy  night.  I  knew  certain  things,  knew  them 
definitely  in  the  clear  light  of  morning.  Hawkins 
had  the  letters  that  Arthur  Wells  had  found;  that 
was  one  thing.  I  had  not  taken  Ellingham's 
stick  to  Mrs.  Dane's  house;  that  was  another.  I 
had  not  done  it.  I  had  placed  it  on  the  table  and 
had  not  touched  it  again. 

But  those  were  immaterial,  compared  with  one 
outstanding  fact.  Any  supernatural  solution 
would  imply  full  knowledge  by  whatever  power 
had  controlled  the  medium.  And  there  was  not 
full  knowledge.  There  was.,  on  the  contrary,  a 
definite  place  beyond  which  the  medium  could 
not  go. 

She  did  not  know  who  had  killed  Arthur  Wells. 

To  my  surprise,  Sperry  and  Herbert  Robinson 
came  together  to  see  me  that  morning  at  my 
office.  Sperry,  like  myself,  was  pale  and  tired, 
but  Herbert  was  restless  and  talkative,  for  all  the 
world  like  a  terrier  on  the  scent  of  a  rat. 

They  had  brought  a  newspaper  account  of  an 
attempt  by  burglars  to  rob  the  Wells  house,  and 
the  usual  police  formula  that  arrests  were  ex- 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 153 

pected  to  be  made  that  day.  There  was  a  dia 
gram  of  the  house,  and  a  picture  of  the  kitchen 
door,  with  an  arrow  indicating  the  bullet-hole. 

"Hawkins  will  be  here  soon,"  Sperry  said, 
rather  casually,  after  I  had  read  the  clipping. 

"Here?" 

"Yes.  He  is  bringing  a  letter  from  Miss 
Jeremy.  The  letter  is  merely  a  blind.  We  want 
to  see  him." 

Herbert  was  examining  the  door  of  my  office. 
He  set  the  spring  lock.  "He  may  try  to  bolt/' 
he  explained.  "We're  in  this  pretty  deep,  you 
know." 

"How  about  a  record  of  what  he  says?"  Sperry 
asked. 

I  pressed  a  button,  and  Miss  Joyce  came  in. 
"Take  the  testimony  of  the  man  who  is  coming 
in,  Miss  Joyce.,"  I  directed.  "Take  everything 
we  say,  any  of  us.  Can  you  tell  the  different 
voices  ?" 

She  thought  she  could,  and  took  up  her  position 
in  the  next  room,  with  the  door  partly  open. 

I  can  still  see  Hawkins  as  Sperry  let  him  in — 
a  tall,  cadaverous  man  of  good  manners  and  an 
English  accent,  a  superior  servant.  He  was  cool 
but  rather  resentful.  I  judged  that  he  consid 
ered  carrying  letters  as  in  no  way  a  part  of  his 
work,  and  that  he  was  careful  of  his  dignity. 


154 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

"Miss  Jeremy  sent  this,,  sir/'  he  said. 

Then  his  eyes  took  in  Sperry  and  Herbert,  and 
he  drew  himself  up. 

"I  see,"  he  said.     "It  wasn't  the  letter,  then?" 

"Not  entirely.  We  want  to  have  a  talk  with 
you,  Hawkins." 

"Very  well,  sir."  But  his  eyes  went  from  one 
to  the  other  of  us. 

"You  were  in  the  employ  of  Mr.  Wells.  We 
know  that.  Also  we  saw  you  there  the  night  he 
died,  but  some  time  after  his  death.  What  time 
did  you  get  in  that  night?" 

"About  midnight.     I  am  not  certain." 

"Who  told  you  of  what  had  happened?" 

"I  told  you  that  before.  I  met  the  detectives 
going  out." 

"Exactly.  Now,  Hawkins,,  you  had  come  in, 
locked  the  door,  and  placed  the  key  outside  for 
the  other  servants  ?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

"How  do  you  expect  us  to  believe  that  ?"  Sperry 
demanded  irritably.  "There  was  only  one  key. 
Could  you  lock  yourself  in  and  then  place  the  key 
outside?" 

"Yes,  sir,"  he  replied  impassively.  "By  open 
ing  the  kitchen  window,  I  could  reach  out  and 
hang  it  on  the  nail." 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 155 

"You  were  out  of  the  house,  then,,  at  the  time 
Mr.  Wells  died  ?" 

"I  can  prove  it  by  as  many  witnesses  as  you 
wish  to  call." 

"Now,  about  these  letters,  Hawkins,"  Sperry 
said.  "The  letters  in  the  bag.  Have  you  still 
got  them?" 

He  half  rose — we  had  given  him  a  chair  facing 
the  light — and  then  sat  down  again.  "What  let 
ters?" 

"Don't  beat  about  the  bush.  We  know  you 
have  the  letters.  And  we  want  them." 

"I  don't  intend  to  give  them  up,  sir." 

"Will  you  tell  us  how  you  got  them?" 

He  hesitated.  "If  you  do  not  know  already, 
I  do  not  care  to  say." 

I  placed  the  letter  to  A  31  before  him.  "You 
wrote  this,  I  think?"  I  said. 

He  was  genuinely  startled.  More  than  that, 
indeed,  for  his  face  twitched.  "Suppose  I  did?" 
he  said,  "I'm  not  admitting  it." 

"Will  you  tell  us  for  whom  it  was  meant?" 

"You  know  a  great  deal  already,  gentlemen. 
Why  not  find  that  out  from  where  you  learned  the 
rest?" 

"You  know,  then,  where  we  learned  what  we 
know?" 

"That's  easy,"  he  said  bitterly.     "She's  told 


156 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

you  enough,  I  daresay.  She  doesn't  know  it  all, 
of  course.  Any  more  than  I  do,"  he  added. 

"Will  you  give  us  the  letters?" 

"I  haven't  said  I  have  them.  I  haven't  ad 
mitted  I  wrote  that  one  on  the  desk.  Suppose 
I  have  them,  I'll  not  give  them  up  except  to  the 
District  Attorney/' 

"By  'she'  do  you  refer  to  Miss  Jeremy?"  I 
asked. 

He  stared  at  me,  and  then  smiled  faintly. 

"You  know  who  I  mean." 

We  tried  to  assure  him  that  we  were  not,  in 
a  sense,  seeking  to  involve  him  in  the  situation, 
and  I  even  went  so  far  as  to  state  our  position, 
briefly : 

"I'd  better  explain,  Hawkins.  We  are  not 
doing  police  work.  But,  owing  to  a  chain  of  cir 
cumstances,  we  have  learned  that  Mr.  Wells  did 
not  kill  himself.  He  was  murdered,  or  at  least 
shot.,  by  some  one  else.  It  may  not  have  been 
deliberate.  Owing  to  what  we  have  learned,,  cer 
tain  people  are  under  suspicion.  We  want  to 
clear  things  up  for  our  own  satisfaction." 

"Then  why  is  some  one  taking  down  what  I  say 
in  the  next  room?" 

He  could  only  have  guessed  it,  but  he  saw  that 
he  was  right,  by  our  faces.  He  smiled  bitterly. 
"Go  on,"  he  said.  "Take  it  down.  It  can't  hurt 


SIGHT  UNSEEN  157 

anybody.  I  don't  know  who  did  it,  and  that's 
God's  truth." 

And,,  after  long  wrangling,  that  was  as  far  as 
we  got. 

He  suspected  who  had  done  it,  but  he  did  not 
know.  He  absolutely  refused  to  surrender  the 
letters  in  his  possession,  and  a  sense  of  delicacy, 
I  think,  kept  us  all  from  pressing  the  question  of 
the  A  31  matter. 

'That's  a  personal  affair,"  he  said.  "I've  had 
a  good  bit  of  trouble.  I'm  thinking  now  of  going 
back  to  England." 

And,  as  I  say,  we  did  not  insist. 

When  he  had  gone,  there  seemed  to  be  noth 
ing  to  say.  He  had  left  the  same  impression  on 
all  of  us,  I  think — of  trouble,  but  not  of  crime. 
Of  a  man  fairly  driven;  of  wretchedness  that 
was  almost  despair.  He  still  had  the  letters. 
He  had,  after  all,  as  much  right  to  them  as  we 
had,,  which  was,  actually,  no  right  at  all.  And, 
whatever  it  was,  he  still  had  his  secret. 

Herbert  was  almost  childishly  crestfallen. 
Sperry's  attitude  was  more  philosophical. 

"A  woman,  of  course,"  he  said.  "The  A  31 
letter  shows  it.  He  tried  to  get  her  back,  per 
haps,  by  holding  the  letters  over  her  head.  And 
it  hasn't  worked  out.  Poor  devil!  Only — who 
is  the  woman?" 


158  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

It  was  that  night,  the  fifteenth  day  after  the 
crime,  that  the  solution  came.  Came,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  to  my  door. 

I  was  in  the  library,  reading,  or  trying  to  read, 
a  rather  abstruse  book  on  psychic  phenomena. 
My  wife,  I  recall,  had  just  asked  me  to  change  a 
banjo  record  for  "The  End  of  a  Pleasant  Day," 
when  the  bell  rang. 

In  our  modest  establishment  the  maids  retire 
early,  and  it  is  my  custom,  on  those  rare  occa 
sions  when  the  bell  rings  after  nine  o'clock,  to 
answer  the  door  myself. 

.To  my  surprise,  it  was  Sperry,  accompanied  by 
two  ladies,  one  of  them  heavily  veiled.  It  was 
not  until  I  had  ushered  them  into  the  reception 
room  and  lighted  the  gas  that  I  saw  who  they 
were.  It  was  Elinor  Wells,  in  deep  mourning, 
and  Clara,  Mrs.  Dane's  companion  and  secretary. 

I  am  afraid  I  was  rather  excited,,  for  I  took 
Sperry's  hat  from  him,  and  placed  it  on  the  head 
of  a  marble  bust  which  I  had  given  my  wife  on 
our  last  anniversary,  and  Sperry  says  that  I  drew 
a  smoking-stand  up  beside  Elinor  Wells  with 
great  care.  I  do  not  know.  It  has,  however, 
passed  into  history  in  the  Club,  where  every  now 
and  then  for  some  time  Herbert  offered  one  of 
the  ladies  a  cigar,  with  my  compliments. 

My  wife,  I  believe,  was  advancing  along  the 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 159 

corridor  when  Sperry  closed  the  door.  As  she 
had  only  had  time  to  see  that  a  woman  was  in 
the  room,  she  was  naturally  resentful,  and  retired 
to  the  upper  floor,  where  I  found  her  considerably 
upset,  some  time  later. 

While  I  am  quite  sure  that  I  was  not  thinking 
clearly  at  the  opening  of  the  interview,  I  know 
that  I  was  puzzled  at  the  presence  of  Mrs.  Dane's 
secretary,  but  I  doubtless  accepted  it  as  having 
some  connection  with  Clara's  notes.  And 
Sperry,  at  the  beginning,  made  no  comment  on 
her  at  all. 

"Mrs.  Wells  suggested  that  we  come  here,  Hor 
ace/'  he  began.  "We  may  need  a  legal  mind  on 
this.  I'm  not  sure,  or  rather  I  think  it  unlikely. 
But  just  in  case — suppose  you  tell  him,  Elinor/' 

I  have  no  record  of  the  story  Elinor  Wells  told 
that  night  in  our  little  reception-room,,  with  Clara 
sitting  in  a  corner,  grave  and  white.  It  was  frag 
mentary,  inco-ordinate.  But  I  got  it  all  at  last. 

Charlie  Ellingham  had  killed  Arthur  Wells, 
but  in  a  struggle.  In  parts  the  story  was  sordid 
enough.  She  did  not  spare  herself,  or  her  mo 
tives.  She  had  wanted  luxury,  and  Arthur  had 
not  succeeded  as  he  had  promised.  They  were 
in  debt,  and  living  beyond  their  means.  But  even 
that,  she  hastened  to  add,  would  not  have  mat- 


160  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

tered,  had  he  not  been  brutal  with  her.  He  had 
made  her  life  very  wretched. 

But  on  the  subject  of  Charlie  Ellingham  she 
was  emphatic.  She  knew  that  there  had  been 
talk,  but  there  had  been  no  real  basis  for  it.  She 
had  turned  to  him  for  comfort,  and  he  gave  her 
love.  She  didn't  know  where  he  was  now,  and 
didn't  greatly  care,  but  she  would  like  to  recover 
and  destroy  some  letters  he  had  written  her. 

She  was  looking  crushed  and  ill,  and  she  told 
her  story  inco-ordinately  and  nervously.  Reduced 
to  its  elements,,  it  was  as  follows : 

On  the  night  of  Arthur  Wells's  death  they  were 
dressing  for  a  ball.  She  had  made  a  private  ar 
rangement  with  Ellingham  to  plead  a  headache 
at  the  last  moment  and  let  Arthur  go  alone.  But 
he  had  been  so  insistent  that  she  had  been  forced 
to  go,  after  all.  She  had  sent  the  governess, 
Suzanne  Gautier,  out  to  telephone  Ellingham  not 
to  come,  but  he  was  not  at  his  house,  and  the  mes 
sage  was  left  with  his  valet.  As  it  turned  out,  he 
had  already  started. 

Elinor  was  dressed,  all  but  her  ball-gown,  and 
had  put  on  a  negligee,  to  wait  for  the  governess 
to  return  and  help  her.  Arthur  was  in  his  dress 
ing-room,  and  she  heard  him  grumbling  about 
having  no  blades  for  his  safety  razor. 

He  got  out  a  case  of  razors  and  searched  for 


SIGHT  UNSEEN  161 

the  strop.  When  she  remembered  where  the 
strop  was,  it  was  too  late.  The  letters  had  been 
beside  it.,  and  he  was  coming  toward  her,  with 
them  in  his  hand. 

She  was  terrified.  He  had  read  only  one,  but 
that  was  enough.  He  muttered  something  and 
turned  away.  She  saw  his  face  as  he  went  to 
ward  where  the  revolver  had  been  hidden  from 
the  children,  and  she  screamed. 

Charlie  Ellingham  heard  her.  The  door  had 
been  left  unlocked  by  the  governess,  and  he  was 
in  the  lower  hall.  He  ran  up  and  the  two  men 
grappled.  The  first  shot  was  fired  by  Arthur. 
It  struck  the  ceiling.  The  second  she  was  doubt 
ful  about.  She  thought  the  revolver  was  still  in 
Arthur's  hand.  It  was  all  horrible.  He  went 
dowrn  like  a  stone,  in  the  hallway  outside  the  door. 

They  were  nearly  mad,  the  two  of  them.  They 
had  dragged  the  body  in,  and  then  faced  each 
other.  Ellingham  was  for  calling  the  police  at 
once  and  surrendering,  but  she  had  kept  him  away 
from  the  telephone.  She  maintained,  and  I 
think  it  very  possible,  that  her  whole  thought 
was  for  the  children,  and  the  effect  on  their  after 
lives  of  such  a  scandal.  And,  after  all,  nothing 
could  help  the  man  on  the  floor. 

It  was  while  they  were  trying  to  formulate 
some  concerted  plan  that  they  heard  footsteps 


162 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

below,  and,  thinking  it  was  Mademoiselle  Gautier, 
she  drove  Ellingham  into  the  rear  of  the  house, 
from  which  later  he  managed  to  escape.  But  it 
was  Clara  who  was  coming  up  the  stairs. 

"She  had  been  our  first  governess  for  the  chil 
dren/'  Elinor  said,  "and  she  often  came  in.  She 
had  made  a  birthday  smock  for  Buddy,  and  she 
had  it  in  her  hand.  She  almost  fainted.  I 
couldn't  tell  her  about  Charlie  Ellingham.  I 
couldn't.  I  told  her  we  had  been  struggling,  and 
that  I  was  afraid  I  had  shot  him.  She  is  quick. 
She  knew  just  what  to  do.  We  worked  fast. 
She  said  a  suicide  would  not  have  fired  one  shot 
into  the  ceiling,  and  she  fixed  that.  It  was  terri 
ble.  And  all  the  time  he  lay  there,  with  his  eyes 
half  open " 

The  letters,,  it  seems,  were  all  over  the  place. 
Elinor  thought  of  the  curtain,  cut  a  receptacle 
for  them,  but  she  was  afraid  of  the  police. 
Finally  she  gave  them  to  Clara,  who  was  to  take 
them  away  and  burn  them. 

They  did  everything  they  could  think  of,  all  the 
time  listening  for  Suzanne  Gautier's  return ;  filled 
the  second  empty  chamber  of  the  revolver, 
dragged  the  body  out  of  the  hall  and  washed  the 
carpet,  and  called  Doctor  Sperry,  knowing  that 
he  was  at  Mrs.  Dane's  and  could  not  come. 

Clara  had  only  a  little  time,  and  with  the  letters 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 163 

in  her  handbag  she  started  down  the  stairs. 
There  she  heard  some  one,  possibly  Ellingham,  on 
the  back  stairs,  and  in  her  haste,  she  fell,  hurting 
her  knee,  and  she  must  have  dropped  the  hand 
bag  at  that  time.  They  knew  now  that  Hawkins 
had  found  it  later  on.  But  for  a  few  days  they 
didn't  know,  and  hence  the  advertisement. 

"I  think  we  would  better  explain  Hawkins," 
Sperry  said.  "Hawkins  was  married  to  Miss 
Clara  here,  some  years  ago,  while  she  was  with 
Mrs.  Wells.  They  had  kept  it  a  secret,  and  re 
cently  she  has  broken  with  him." 

"He  was  infatuated  with  another  woman," 
Clara  said  briefly.  "That's  a  personal  matter. 
It  has  nothing  to  do  with  this  case." 

"It  explains  Hawkins's  letter." 

"It  doesn't  explain  how  that  medium  knew 
everything  that  happened/'  Clara  put  in,  excit 
edly.  "She  knew  it  all,  even  the  library  paste! 
I  can  tell  you,  Mr.  Johnson,  I  was  close  to  fainting 
a  dozen  times  before  I  finally  did  it." 

"Did  you  know  of  our  seances?"  I  asked  Mrs. 
Wells. 

"Yes.  I  may  as  well  tell  you  that  I  haven't 
been  in  Florida.  How  could  I?  The  children 
are  there,  but  I " 

"Did  you  tell  Charlie  Ellingham  about  them  ?" 

"After  the  second  one  I  warned  him,  and  I 


164 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

think  he  went  to  the  house.  One  bullet  was 
somewhere  in  the  ceiling,  or  in  the  floor  of  the 
nursery.  I  thought  it  ought  to  be  found.  I 
don't  know  whether  he  found  it  or  not.  I've  been 
afraid  to  see  him." 

She  sat,  clasping  and  unclasping  her  hands  in 
her  lap.  She  was  a  proud  woman,  and  surrender 
had  come  hard.  The  struggle  was  marked  in  her 
face.  She  looked  as  though  she  had  not  slept  for 
days. 

"You  think  I  am  frightened,"  she  said  slowly. 
"And  I  am,  terribly  frightened.  But  not  about 
discovery.  That  has  come,  and  cannot  be 
helped." 

"Then  why?" 

"How  does  this  woman,  this  medium,  know 
these  things?"  Her  voice  rose,  with  an  unex 
pected  hysterical  catch.  "It  is  superhuman.  I 
am  almost  mad." 

"We're  going  to  get  to  the  bottom  of  this," 
Sperry  said  soothingly.  "Be  sure  that  it  is  not 
what  you  think  it  is,  Elinor.  There's  a  simple 
explanation,  and  I  think  I've  got  it.  What  about 
the  stick  that  was  taken  from  my  library  ?" 

"Will  you  tell  me  how  you  came  to  have  it, 
doctor?" 

"Yes.  I  took  it  from  the  lower  hall  the  night 
— the  night  it  happened." 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 165 

"It  was  Charlie  Ellingham's.  He  had  left  it 
there.  We  had  to  have  it,  doctor.  Alone  it 
might  not  mean  much,  but  with  the  other  things 
you  knew — tell  them,  Clara/' 

"I  stole  it  from  your  office/'  Clara  said,  look 
ing  straight  ahead.  "We  had  to  have  it.  I 
knew  at  the  second  sitting  that  it  was  his/' 

"When  did  you  take  it?" 

"On  Monday  morning,  I  went  for  Mrs.  Dane's 
medicine,  and  you  had  promised  her  a  book.  Do 
you  remember  ?  I  told  your  man,  and  he  allowed 
me  to  go  up  to  the  library.  It  was  there,  on  the 
table.  I  had  expected  to  have  to  search  for  it, 
but  it  was  lying  out,  I  fastened  it  to  my  belt, 
under  my  long  coat/' 

"And  placed  it  in  the  rack  at  Mrs.  Dane's?" 
Sperry  was  watching  her  intently,  with  the  same 
sort  of  grim  intentness  he  wears  when  examining 
a  chest. 

"I  put  it  in  the  closet  in  my  room.  I  meant  to 
get  rid  of  it,  when  I  had  a  little  time.  I  don't 
know  how  it  got  downstairs,  but  I  think " 

"Yes?" 

"We  are  house-cleaning.  A  housemaid  was 
washing  closets.  I  suppose  she  found  it  and, 
thinking  it  was  one  of  Mrs.  Dane's,  took  it  down 
stairs.  That  is,  unless "  It  was  clear  that, 


166  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

like  Elinor,  she  had  a  supernatural  explanation  in 
her  mind.  She  looked  gaunt  and  haggard. 

"Mr.  Ellingham  was  anxious  to  get  it,"  she  fin 
ished.  "He  had  taken  Mr.  Johnson's  overcoat 
by  mistake  one  night  when  you  were  both  in  the 
house,  and  the  notes  were  in  it.  He  saw  that 
the  stick  was  important." 

"Clara/'  Sperry  asked,  "did  you  see,  the  day 
you  advertised  for  your  bag,  another  similar  ad 
vertisement?" 

"I  saw  it.     It  frightened  me." 

"You  have  no  idea  who  inserted  it?" 

"None  whatever." 

"Did  you  ever  see  Miss  Jeremy  before  the  first 
sitting?  Or  hear  of  her?" 

"Never." 

"Or  between  the  seances?" 

"No." 

Elinor  rose  and  drew  her  veil  down.  "We 
must  go,"  she  said.  "Surely  now  you  will  cease 
these  terrible  investigations.  I  cannot  stand 
much  more.  I  am  going  mad." 

"There  will  be  no  more  seances,"  Sperry  said 
gravely. 

"What  are  you  going  to  do?"  She  turned  to 
me,  I  daresay  because  I  represented  what  to  her 
was  her  supreme  dread,  the  law. 

"My  dear  girl,"  I  said,  "we  are  not  going  to 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 167 

do  anything.  The  Neighborhood  Club  has  been 
doing  a  little  amateur  research  work,  which  is 
now  over.  That  is  all." 

Sperry  took  them  away  in  his  car,  but  he 
turned  on  the  door-step.,  "Wait  downstairs  for 
me/'  he  said,  "I  am  coming  back/' 

I  remained  in  the  library  until  he  returned,  un 
easily  pacing  the  floor. 

For  where  were  we,  after  all  ?  We  had  had  the 
medium's  story  elaborated  and  confirmed,  but  the 
fact  remained  that,  step  by  step,  through  her  un 
known  "control"  the  Neighborhood  Club  had 
followed  a  tragedy  from  its  beginning,  or  almost 
its  beginning,  to  its  end. 

Was  everything  on  which  I  had  built  my  life 
to  go?  Its  philosophy,  its  science,  even  its  the 
ology,  before  the  revelations  of  a  young  woman 
who  knew  hardly  the  rudiments  of  the  very  things 
she  was  destroying? 

Was  death,  then,  not  peace  and  an  awakening 
to  new  things,  but  a  wretched  and  dissociated 
clutching  after  the  old?  A  wrench  which  only 
loosened  but  did  not  break  our  earthly  ties  ? 

It  was  well  that  Sperry  came  back  when  he 
did,  bringing  with  him  a  breath  of  fresh  night 
air  and  stalwart  sanity.  He  found  me  still  pac 
ing  the  room. 

"The  thing  I  want  to  know,"  I  said  fretfully, 


168  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

"is  where  this  leaves  us?     Where  are  we?     For 
God's  sake,  where  are  we?" 

"First  of  all,"  he  said,  "have  you  anything  to 
drink?  Not  for  me.  For  yourself.  You  look 
sick." 

"We  do  not  keep  intoxicants  in  the  house." 

"Oh,  piffle,"  he  said.     "Where  is  it,  Horace?" 

"I  have  a  little  gin." 

"Where?" 

I  drew  a  chair  before  the  book-shelves,  which 
in  our  old-fashioned  house  reach  almost  to  the 
ceiling,  and,  withdrawing  a  volume  of  Josephus, 
I  brought  down  the  bottle. 

"Now  and  then,,  when  I  have  had  a  bad  day," 
I  explained,  "I  find  that  it  makes  me  sleep." 

He  poured  out  some  and  I  drank  it,  being  care 
ful  to  rinse  the  glass  afterward. 

"Well,"  said  Sperry,  when  he  had  lighted  a 
cigar.  "So  you  want  to  know  where  we  are?" 

"I  would  like  to  save  something  out  of  the 
wreck." 

"That's  easy.  Horace,  you  should  be  a  heart 
specialist,  and  I  should  have  taken  the  law.  It's 
as  plain  as  the  alphabet."  He  took  his  notes  of 
the  sittings  from  his  pocket.  "I'm  going  to  read 
a  few  things.  Keep  what  is  left  of  your  mind 
on  them.  This  is  the  first  sitting. 


SIGHT  UNSEEN  169 

"  The  knee  hurts.  It  is  very  bad.  Arnica 
will  take  the  pain  out/ 

"  'I  want  to  go  out.  I  want  air.  If  I  could 
only  go  to  sleep  and  forget  it.  The  drawing- 
room  furniture  is  scattered  all  over  the  house.' 

"Now  the  second  sitting: 

"  'It  is  writing.'  (The  stick.)  "It  is  writing, 
but  the  water  washed  it  away.  All  of  it,  not  a 
trace/  'If  only  the  pocketbook  were  not  lost. 
Car-tickets  and  letters.  It  will  be  terrible  if  the 
letters  are  found/  'Hawkins  may  have  it.  The 
curtain  was  much  safer/  That  part's  safe 
enough,  unless  it  made  a  hole  in  the  floor  above/' 

"Oh,  if  you're  going  to  read  a  lot  of  irrelevant 
material " 

"Irrelevant  nothing !  Wake  up,  Horace !  But 
remember  this.  I'm  not  explaining  the  physical 
phenomena.  We'll  never  do  that.  It  wasn't  ex 
traordinary,  as  such  things  go.  Our  little 
medium  in  a  trance  condition  has  read  poor 
Clara's  mind.  It's  all  here,  all  that  Clara  knew 
and  nothing  that  she  didn't  know.  A  mind- 
reader,  friend  Horace.  And  Heaven  help  me 
when  I  marry  her!" 

******* 

As  I  have  said,  the  Neighborhood  Club  ended 
its  investigations  with  this  conclusion,,  which  I 
believe  is  properly  reached.  It  is  only  fair  to 


170 SIGHT  UNSEEN __ 

state  that  there  are  those  among  us  who  have  ac 
cepted  that  theory  in  the  Wells  case,  but  who 
have  preferred  to  consider  that  behind  both  it 
and  the  physical  phenomena  of  the  seances  there 
was  an  intelligence  which  directed  both,  an  intel 
ligence  not  of  this  world  as  we  know  it.  Both 
Herbert  and  Alice  Robinson  are  now  pronounced 
spiritualists,  although  Miss  Jeremy,  now  Mrs. 
Sperry,  has  definitely  abandoned  all  investigative 
work. 

Personally,  I  have  evolved  no  theory.  It 
seems  beyond  dispute  that  certain  individuals  can 
read  minds,  and  that  these  same,  or  other  so-called 
"sensitives,"  are  capable  of  liberating  a  form  of 
invisible  energy  which,  however,  they  turn  to  no 
further  account  than  the  useless  ringing  of  bells, 
moving  of  small  tables,  and  flinging  about  of 
divers  objects. 

To  me,  I  admit,  the  solution  of  the  Wells  case 
as  one  of  mind-reading  is  more  satisfactory  than 
explanatory.  For  mental  waves  remain  a  mys 
tery,  acknowledged,  as  is  electricity,  but  of  a 
nature  yet  unrevealed.  Thoughts  are  things. 
That  is  all  we  know. 

Mrs.  Dane,  I  believe,  had  suspected  the  solu 
tion  from  the  start. 

The  Neighborhood  Club  has  recently  dis 
banded.  We  tried  other  things,  but  we  had  been 


SIGHT  UNSEEN 171 

spoiled.  Our  Kipling  winter  was  a  failure.  We 
read  a  play  or  two,  with  Sperry's  wife  reading 
the  heroine,  and  the  rest  of  us  taking  other  parts. 
She  has  a  lovely  voice,  has  Mrs.  Sperry.  But 
it  was  all  stale  and  unprofitable,  after  the  Wells 
affair.  With  Herbert  on  a  lecture  tour  on  spirit 
realism,  and  Mrs.  Dane  at  a  sanatorium  for  the 
winter,  we  have  now  given  it  up,  and  my  wife  and 
I  spend  our  Monday  evenings  at  home. 

After  dinner  I  read,  or,  as  lately,  I  have  been 
making  this  record  of  the  Wells  case  from  our 
notes.  My  wife  is  still  fond  of  the  phonograph, 
and  even  now,  as  I  make  this  last  entry  and  com 
plete  my  narrative,  she  is  waiting  for  me  to 
change  the  record.  I  will  be  frank.  I  hate  the 
phonograph.  I  hope  it  will  be  destroyed,  or 
stolen.  I  am  thinking  very  seriously  of  having 
it  stolen. 

"Horace,"  says  my  wife,  "whatever  would  we 
do  without  the  phonograph?  I  wish  you  would 
put  it  in  the  burglar-insurance  policy.  I  am  al 
ways  afraid  it  will  be  stolen." 

Even  here,  you  see!  Truly  thoughts  are 
things. 


THE,  CONFESSION 


THE  CONFESSION 


1AM  not  a  susceptible  woman.  I  am  objective 
rather  than  subjective,  and  a  fairly  full  ex 
perience  of  life  has  taught  me  that  most  of  my 
impressions  are  from  within  out  rather  than  the 
other  way  about.  For  instance,  obsession  at  one 
time  a  few  years  ago  of  a  shadowy  figure  on  my 
right,  just  beyond  the  field  of  vision,  was  later 
exposed  as  the  result  of  a  defect  in  my  glasses. 
In  the  same  way  Maggie,  my  old  servant,  was 
during  one  entire  summer  haunted  by  church- 
bells  and  considered  it  a  personal  summons  to 
eternity  until  it  was  shown  to  be  in  her  inner  ear. 
Yet  the  Benton  house  undeniably  made  me  un 
comfortable.  Perhaps  it  was  because  it  had  re 
mained  unchanged  for  so  long.  The  old  horse 
hair  chairs,  with  their  shiny  mahogany  frames, 
showed  by  the  slightly  worn  places  in  the  carpet 
before  them  that  they  had  not  deviated  an  inch 
from  their  position  for  many  years.  The  carpets 
— carpets  that  reached  to  the  very  baseboards 
and  gave  under  one's  feet  with  the  yielding  of 
heavy  padding  beneath — were  bright  under  beds 

175 


176  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

and  wardrobes,  while  in  the  centers  of  the  rooms 
they  had  faded  into  the  softness  of  old  tapestry. 

Maggie,  I  remember,  on  our  arrival  moved  a 
chair  from  the  wall  in  the  library,  and  immediate 
ly  put  it  back  again,  with  a  glance  to  see  if  I  had 
observed  her. 

"It's  nice  and  clean,  Miss  Agnes,"  she  said. 
"A — I  kind  of  feel  that  a  little  dirt  would  make 
it  more  homelike." 

"I'm  sure  I  don't  see  why,"  I  replied,  rather 
sharply,  "I've  lived  in  a  tolerably  clean  house 
most  of  my  life." 

Maggie,  however,  was  digging  a  heel  into  the 
padded  carpet.  She  had  chosen  a  sunny  place 
for  the  experiment,  and  a  small  cloud  of  dust  rose 
like  smoke. 

"Germs!"  she  said.  "]ust  what  I  expected. 
We'd  better  bring  the  vacuum  cleaner  out  from 
the  city,  Miss  Agnes.  Them  carpets  haven't  been 
lifted  for  years." 

But  I  paid  little  attention  to  her.  To  Maggie 
any  particle  of  matter  not  otherwise  classified  is 
a  germ,  and  the  prospect  of  finding  dust  in  that 
immaculate  house  was  sufficiently  thrilling  to 
tide  over  the  strangeness  of  our  first  few  hours 
in  it. 

Once  a  year  I  rent  a  house  in  the  country. 
When  my  nephew  and  niece  were  children,  I  did 


THE  CONFESSION 177 

it  to  take  them  out  of  the  city  during  school  vaca 
tions.  Later,  when  they  grew  up,  it  was  to  be 
near  the  country  club.  But  now,  with  the  chil 
dren  married  and  new  families  coming  along,  we 
were  more  concerned  with  dairies  than  with  clubs, 
and  I  inquired  more  carefully  about  the  neigh 
borhood  cows  than  about  the  neighborhood  golf- 
links.  I  had  really  selected  the  house  at  Benton 
Station  because  there  was  a  most  alluring  pas 
ture,  with  a  brook  running  through  it,  and  vio 
lets  over  the  banks.  It  seemed  to  me  that  no  cow 
with  a  conscience  could  live  in  those  surround 
ings  and  give  colicky  milk. 

Then,  the  house  was  cheap.  Unbelievably 
cheap.  I  suspected  sewerage  at  once,  but  it 
seemed  to  be  in  the  best  possible  order.  Indeed, 
new  plumbing  had  been  put  in,  and  extra  bath 
rooms  installed.  As  old  Miss  Emily  Benton  lived 
there  alone,  with  only  an  old  couple  to  look  after 
her,  it  looked  odd  to  see  three  bathrooms,  two 
of  them  new,  on  the  second  floor.  Big  tubs  and 
showers,  although  little  old  Miss  Emily  could 
have  bathed  in  the  washbowl  and  have  had  room 
to  spare. 

I  faced  the  agent  downstairs  in  the  parlor, 
after  I  had  gone  over  the  house.  Miss  Emily 
Benton  had  not  appeared  and  I  took  it  she  was 
away. 


178  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

"Why  all  those  bathrooms?"  I  demanded. 
"Does  she  use  them  in  rotation?" 

He  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"She  wished  to  rent  the  house,  Miss  Blakiston. 
The  old-fashioned  plumbing " 

"But  she  is  giving  the  house  away/'  I  ex 
claimed.  "Those  bathrooms  have  cost  much  more 
than  she  will  get  out  of  it.  You  and  I  know  that 
the  price  is  absurd." 

He  smiled  at  that.  "If  you  wish  to  pay  more, 
you  may,  of  course.  She  is  a  fine  woman,  Miss 
Blakiston,  but  you  can  never  measure  a  Benton 
with  any  yard-stick  but  their  own.  The  truth 
is  that  she  wants  the  house  off  her  hands  this 
summer.  I  don't  know  why.  It's  a  good  house, 
and  she  has  lived  here  all  her  life.  But  my  in 
structions,  I'll  tell  you  frankly,  are  to  rent  it,  if 
I  have  to  give  it  away." 

With  which  absurd  sentence  we  went  out  the 
front  door,  and  I  saw  the  pasture,  which  decided 
me. 

In  view  of  the  fact  that  I  had  taken  the  house 
for  my  grandnieces  and  nephews,  it  was  annoying 
to  find,  by  the  end  of  June,  that  I  should  have  to 
live  in  it  by  myself.  Willie's  boy  was  having  his 
teeth  straightened,  and  must  make  daily  visits  to 
the  dentist,  and  Jack  went  to  California  and  took 
Gertrude  and  the  boys  with  him. 


THE  CONFESSION 179 

The  first  curious  thing  happened  then.  I  wrote 
to  the  agent,  saying  that  I  would  not  use  the 
house,  but  enclosing  a  check  for  its  rental,  as  I 
had  signed  the  lease.  To  my  surprise,  I  received 
in  reply  a  note  from  Miss  Emily  herself,  very 
carefully  written  on  thin  note-paper. 

Although  it  was  years  since  I  had  seen  her,  the 
exquisite  neatness  of  the  letter,  its  careful  para 
graphing,  its  margins  so  accurate  as  to  give  the 
impression  that  she  had  drawn  a  faint  margin 
line  with  a  lead  pencil  and  then  erased  it — all 
these  were  as  indicative  of  Emily  Benton  as — 
well,  as  the  letter  was  not. 

As  well  as  I  can  explain  it,  the  letter  was  im 
pulsive,  almost  urgent.  Yet  the  little  old  lady  I 
remembered  was  neither  of  these  things.  "My 
dear  Miss  Blakiston,"  she  wrote.  "But  I  do  hope 
you  will  use  the  house.  It  was  because  I  wanted 
to  be  certain  that  it  would  be  occupied  this  sum 
mer  that  I  asked  so  low  a  rent  for  it. 

"You  may  call  it  a  whim  if  you  like,  but  there 
are  reasons  why  I  wish  the  house  to  have  a  sum 
mer  tenant.  It  has,  for  one  thing,  never  been 
empty  since  it  was  built.  It  was  my  father's 
pride,  and  his  father's  before  him,  that  the  doors 
were  never  locked,  even  at  night.  Of  course  I 
can  not  ask  a  tenant  to  continue  this  old  custom, 
but  I  can  ask  you  to  reconsider  your  decision. 


180 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

"Will  you  forgive  me  for  saying  that  you  are 
so  exactly  the  person  I  should  like  to  see  in  the 
house  that  I  feel  I  can  not  give  you  up?  So 
strongly  do  I  feel  this  that  I  would,  if  I  dared,  en 
close  your  check  and  beg  you  to  use  the  house  rent 
free.  Faithfully  yours,  Emily  Benton." 

Gracefully  worded  and  carefully  written  as  the 
letter  was,  I  seemed  to  feel  behind  it  some  stress 
of  feeling,  an  excitement  perhaps,  totally  out  of 
proportion  to  its  contents.  Years  before  I  had 
met  Miss  Emily,  even  then  a  frail  little  old  lady, 
her  small  figure  stiffly  erect,  her  eyes  cold,  her 
whole  bearing  one  of  reserve.  The  Bentons,  for 
all  their  open  doors,  were  known  in  that  part  of 
the  country  as  "proud."  I  can  remember,  too, 
how  when  I  was  a  young  girl  my  mother  had  re 
garded  the  rare  invitations  to  have  tea  and  tiny 
cakes  in  the  Benton  parlor  as  commands,  no  less, 
and  had  taken  the  long  carriage-ride  from  the 
city  with  complacency.  And  now  Miss  Emily, 
last  of  the  family,  had  begged  me  to  take  the 
house. 

In  the  end,  as  has  been  shown,  I  agreed.  The 
glamor  of  the  past  had  perhaps  something  to 
do  with  it.  But  I  have  come  to  a  time  of  life 
when,  failing  intimate  interests  of  my  own,  my 
neighbors'  interests  are  mine  by  adoption.  To  be 
frank,  I  came  because  I  was  curious.  Why,  aside 


THE  CONFESSION  181 

from  a  money  consideration,  was  the  Benton 
house  to  be  occupied  by  an  alien  household?  It 
was  opposed  to  every  tradition  of  the  family  as 
I  had  heard  of  it. 

I  knew  something  of  the  family  history:  the 
Reverend  Thaddeus  Benton,  rector  of  Saint  Bar 
tholomew,  who  had  forsaken  the  frame  rectory 
near  the  church  to  build  himself  the  substantial 
home  now  being  offered  me;  Miss  Emily,  his 
daughter,  who  must  now,  I  computed,  be  nearly 
seventy;  and  a  son  whom  I  recalled  faintly  as 
hardly  bearing  out  the  Benton  traditions  of  solid 
ity  and  rectitude. 

The  Reverend  Mr.  Benton,  I  recalled,  had 
taken  the  stand  that  his  house  was  his  own,  and 
having  moved  his  family  into  it,  had  thereafter, 
save  on  great  occasions,  received  the  congrega 
tion  individually  or  en  masse,  in  his  study  at  the 
church.  A  patriarchal  old  man,  benevolent  yet 
austere,  who  once,  according  to  a  story  I  had 
heard  in  my  girlhood,  had  horsewhipped  one  of 
his  vestrymen  for  trifling  with  the  affections  of  a 
young  married  woman  in  the  village! 

There  was  a  gap  of  thirty  years  in  my  knowl 
edge  of  the  family.  I  had,  indeed,  forgotten  its 
very  existence,  when  by  the  chance  of  a  news 
paper  advertisement  I  found  myself  involved 


182 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

vitally  in  its  affairs,  playing  providence,  indeed, 
and  both  fearing  and  hating  my  role. 

Looking  back,  there  are  a  number  of  things 
that  appear  rather  curious.  Why,  for  instance, 
did  Maggie,  my  old  servant,  develop  such  a  dis 
like  for  the  place?  It  had  nothing  to  do  with 
the  house.  She  had  not  seen  it  when  she  first  re 
fused  to  go.  But  her  reluctance  was  evident 
from  the  beginning. 

"I've  just  got  a  feeling  about  it,  Miss  Agnes," 
she  said.  "I  can't  explain  it,  any  more  than  I  can 
explain  a  cold  in  the  head.  But  it's  there." 

At  first  I  was  inclined  to  blame  Maggie's  "feel 
ing"  on  her  knowledge  that  the  house  was  cheap. 
She  knew  it,  as  she  has,  I  am  sure,  read  all  my 
letters  for  years.  She  has  a  distrust  of  a  bar 
gain.  But  later  I  came  to  believe  that  there  was 
something  more  to  Maggie's  distrust — as  though 
perhaps  a  wave  of  uneasiness,  spreading  from 
some  unknown  source,  had  engulfed  her. 

Indeed,  looking  back  over  the  two  months  I 
spent  in  the  Benton  house,  I  am  inclined  to  go 
even  further.  If  thoughts  carry,  as  I  am  sure 
they  do,  then  emotions  carry.  Fear,  hope,  cour 
age,  despair — if  the  intention  of  writing  a  letter 
to  an  absent  friend  can  spread  itself  half-way 
across  the  earth,  so  that  as  you  write  the  friend 
writes  also,  and  your  letters  cross,  how  much 


THE  CONFESSION  183 

more  should  big  emotions  carry?  I  have  had 
sweep  over  me  such  waves  of  gladness,  such  gusts 
of  despair,  as  have  shaken  me.  Yet  with  no  cause 
for  either.  They  are  gone  in  a  moment.  Just  for 
an  instant,  I  have  caught  and  made  my  own 
another's  joy  or  grief. 

The  only  inexplicable  part  of  this  narrative  is 
that  Maggie,  neither  a  psychic  nor  a  sensitive 
type,  caught  the  terror,  as  I  came  to  call  it,  be 
fore  I  did.  Perhaps  it  may  be  explainable  by  the 
fact  that  her  mental  processes  are  comparatively 
simple,  her  mind  an  empty  slate  that  shows  every 
mark  made  on  it. 

In  a  way,  this  is  a  study  in  fear. 

Maggie's  resentment  continued  through  my 
decision  to  use  the  house,  through  the  packing, 
through  the  very  moving  itself.  It  took  the  form 
of  a  sort  of  watchful  waiting,  although  at  the 
time  we  neither  of  us  realized  it,  and  of  dislike 
of  the  house  and  its  surroundings.  It  extended 
itself  to  the  very  garden,  where  she  gathered  flow 
ers  for  the  table  with  a  ruthlessness  that  was  al 
most  vicious.  And,  as  July  went  on,  and  Miss 
Emily  made  her  occasional  visits,  as  tiny,  as 
delicate  as  herself,  I  had  a  curious  conclusion 
forced  on  me.  Miss  Emily  returned  her  antago 
nism.  I  was  slow  to  credit  it.  What  secret  and 
even  unacknowledged  opposition  could  there  be 


184  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

between  my  downright  Maggie  and  this  little  old 
aristocrat  with  her  frail  hands  and  the  soft  rustle 
of  silk  about  her? 

In  Miss  Emily,  it  took  the  form  of — how 
strange  a  word  to  use  in  connection  with  her ! — 
of  furtive  watchfulness.  I  felt  that  Maggie's  en 
trance,  with  nothing  more  momentous  than  the 
tea-tray,  set  her  upright  in  her  chair,  put  an  edge 
to  her  soft  voice,  and  absorbed  her.  She  was 
still  attentive  to  what  I  said.  She  agreed  or  dis 
sented.  But  back  of  it  all,  with  her  eyes  on  me, 
she  was  watching  Maggie. 

With  Maggie  the  antagonism  took  no  such  sub 
tle  form.  It  showed  itself  in  the  second  best  in 
stead  of  the  best  china,  and  a  tendency  to  weak 
tea,  when  Miss  Emily  took  hers  very  strong. 
And  such  was  the  effect  of  their  mutual  watch 
fulness  and  suspicion,  such  perhaps  was  the  in 
fluence  of  the  staid  old  house  on  me,  after  a  time 
even  that  fact,  of  the  strong  tea,  began  to  strike 
me  as  incongruous.  Miss  Emily  was  so  consist 
ent,  so  consistently  frail  and  dainty  and  so — well, 
unspotted  seems  to  be  the  word — and  so  gentle, 
yet  as  time  went  on  I  began  to  feel  that  she  hated 
Maggie  with  a  real  hatred.  And  there  was  the 
strong  tea ! 

Indeed,  it  was  not  quite  normal,  nor  was  I. 
For  by  that  time — the  middle  of  July  it  was  be- 


THE  CONFESSION 185 

fore  I  figured  out  as  much  as  I  have  set  down  in 
five  minutes — by  that  time  I  was  not  certain 
about  the  house.  It  was  difficult  to  say  just  what 
I  felt  about  the  house.  Willie,  who  came  down 
over  a  Sunday  early  in  the  summer,  possibly 
voiced  it  when  he  came  down  to  his  breakfast 
there. 

"How  did  you  sleep?"  I  asked. 

"Not  very  well."  He  picked  up  his  coffee-cup, 
and  smiled  over  it  rather  sheepishly.  "To  tell 
the  truth,  I  got  to  thinking  about  things — the  fur 
niture  and  all  that/'  he  said  vaguely.  "How 
many  people  have  sat  in  the  chairs  and  seen 
themselves  in  the  mirror  and  died  in  the  bed,  and 
so  on." 

Maggie,  who  was  bringing  in  the  toast,  gave  a 
sort  of  low  moan,  which  she  turned  into  a  cough. 

"There  have  been  twenty-three  deaths  in  it  in 
the  last  forty  years,  Mr.  Willie,"  she  volunteered. 
"That's  according  to  the  gardener.  And  more 
than  half  died  in  that  room  of  yours." 

"Put  down  that  toast  before  you  drop  it,  Mag 
gie/'  I  said.  "You're  shaking  all  over.  And 
go  out  and  shut  the  door/' 

"Very  well/'  she  said,  with  a  meekness  behind 
which  she  was  both  indignant  and  frightened. 
"But  there  is  one  word  I  might  mention  before  I 
go,  and  that  is — cats!" 


186 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

"Cats!"  said  Willie,  as  she  slammed  the  door. 

"I  think  it  is  only  one  cat,"  I  observed  mildly. 
"It  belongs  to  Miss  Emily,  I  fancy.  It  manages 
to  be  in  a  lot  of  places  nearly  simultaneously,  and 
Maggie  swears  it  is  a  dozen." 

Willie  is  not  subtle.  He  is  a  practical  young 
man  with  a  growing  family,  and  a  tendency  the 
last  year  or  two  to  flesh.  But  he  ate  his  break 
fast  thoughtfully. 

"Don't  you  think  it's  rather  isolated?"  he  asked 
finally.  "Just  you  three  women  here?"  I  had 
taken  Delia,  the  cook,  along. 

"We  have  a  telephone/'  I  said,  rather  loftily. 

"Although "  I  checked  myself.  Maggie,  I 

felt  sure,  was  listening  in  the  pantry,  and  I  in 
tended  to  give  her  wild  fancies  no  encourage 
ment.  To  utter  a  thing  is,  to  Maggie,  to  give  it 
life.  By  the  mere  use  of  the  spoken  word  it 
ceases  to  be  supposition  and  becomes  fact. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  my  uneasiness  about  the 
house  resolved  itself  into  an  uneasiness  about 
the  telephone.  It  seems  less  absurd  now  than 
it  did  then.  But  I  remember  what  Willie  said 
about  it  that  morning  on  our  way  to  the  church. 

"It  rings  at  night,  Willie,"  I  said.  "And  when 
I  go  there  is  no  one  there." 

"So  do  all  telephones,"  he  replied  briskly.  "It's 
their  greatest  weakness." 


THE  CONFESSION 187 

"Once  or  twice  we  have  found  the  thing  on  the 
floor  in  the  morning.  It  couldn't  blow  over  or 
knock  itself  down/' 

"Probably  the  cat,"  he  said,  with  the  patient 
air  of  a  man  arguing  with  an  unreasonable 
woman.  "Of  course,"  he  added — we  were  pass 
ing  the  churchyard  then,  dominated  by  what  the 
village  called  the  Benton  "mosolem" — "there's  a 
chance  that  those  dead-and-gone  Bentons  resent 
anything  as  modern  as  a  telephone.  It  might  be 
interesting  to  see  what  they  would  do  to  a  vic- 
trola. 

"I'm  going  to  tell  you  something,  Willie,"  I 
said.  "I  am  afraid  of  the  telephone." 

He  was  completely  incredulous.  I  felt  rather 
ridiculous,  standing  there  in  the  sunlight  of  that 
summer  Sabbath  and  making  my  confession. 
But  I  did  it. 

"I  am  afraid  of  it,"  I  repeated.  "I'm  desper 
ately  sure  you  will  never  understand.  Because  I 
don't.  I  can  hardly  force  myself  tc  go  to  it.  I 
hate  the  very  back  corner  of  the  hall  where  it 
stands,  I " 

I  saw  his  expression  then,  and  I  stopped,  furi 
ous  with  myself.  Why  had  I  said  it?  But  more 
important  still,  why  did  I  feel  it?  I  had  not  put 
it  into  words  before,  I  had  not  expected  to  say 


188  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

it  then.  But  the  moment  I  said  it  I  knew  it  was 
true.  I  had  developed  an  idee  fixe. 

"I  have  to  go  downstairs  at  night  and  answer 
it,"  I  added,  rather  feebly.  "It's  on  my  nerves, 
I  think." 

"I  should  think  it  is"  he  said,  with  a  note  of 
wonder  in  his  voice.  "It  doesn't  sound  like  you. 
A  telephone!"  But  just  at  the  church  door  he 
stopped  me,  a  hand  on  my  arm. 

"Look  here,"  he  said,  "don't  you  suppose  it's 
because  you're  so  dependent  on  the  telephone? 
You  know  that  if  anything  goes  wrong  with  it, 
you're  cut  off,  in  a  way.  And  there's  another 
point — you  get  all  your  news  over  it,  good  and 
bad."  He  had  difficulty,  I  think,  in  finding  the 
words  he  wanted.  "It's — it's  vital,"  he  said. 
"So  you  attach  too  much  importance  to  it,  and  it 
gets  to  be  an  obsession." 

"Very  likely,"  I  assented.  "The  whole  thing 
is  idiotic,  anyhow." 

But — was  it  idiotic? 

I  am  endeavoring  to  set  things  down  as  they 
seemed  to  me  at  the  time,  not  in  the  light  of  sub 
sequent  events.  For,  if  this  narrative  has  any 
interest  at  all,  it  is  a  psychological  one.  I  have 
said  that  it  is  a  study  in  fear,  but  perhaps  it  would 
be  more  accurate  to  say  that  it  is  a  study  of  the 
mental  reaction  of  crime,  of  its  effects  on  differ- 


THE  CONFESSION 189 

ent  minds,  more  or  less  remotely  connected 
with  it. 

That  my  analysis  of  my  impressions  in  the 
church  that  morning  are  not  colored  by  subse 
quent  events  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  under 
cover  of  that  date,  July  i6th,  I  made  the  follow 
ing  entry: 

"Why  do  Maggie  and  Miss  Benton  distrust 
each  other?" 

I  realized  it  even  then,  although  I  did  not  con 
sider  it  serious,  as  is  evidenced  by  the  fact  that 
I  follow  it  with  a  recipe  for  fruit  gelatin,  copied 
from  the  newspaper. 

It  was  a  calm  and  sunny  Sunday  morning.  The 
church  windows  were  wide  open,  and  a  butterfly 
came  in  and  set  the  choir  boys  to  giggling.  At 
the  end  of  my  pew  a  stained-glass  window  to 
Carlo  Benton — the  name  came  like  an  echo  from 
the  forgotten  past — sent  a  shower  of  colored 
light  over  Willie,  turned  my  blue  silk  to  most  un- 
spinsterly  hues,  and  threw  a  sort  of  summer 
radiance  over  Miss  Emily  herself,  in  the  seat 
ahead. 

She  sat  quite  alone,  impeccably  neat,  even  to 
her  profile.  She  was  so  orderly,  so  well  balanced, 
one  stitch  of  her  hand-sewed  organdy  collar  was 
so  clearly  identical  with  every  other,  her  very 
seams,  if  you  can  understand  it,  ran  so  exactly 


190  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

where  they  should,  that  she  set  me  to  pulling  my 
self  straight.  I  am  rather  casual  as  to  seams. 

After  a  time  I  began  to  have  a  curious  feeling 
about  her.  Her  head  was  toward  the  rector, 
standing  in  a  sort  of  white  nimbus  of  sunlight, 
but  I  felt  that  Miss  Emily's  entire  attention  was 
on  our  pew,  immediately  behind  her.  I  find  I  can 
not  put  it  into  words,  unless  it  was  that  her  back 
settled  into  more  rigid  lines.  I  glanced  along 
the  pew.  Willie's  face  wore  a  calm  and  slightly 
somnolent  expression.  But  Maggie,  in  her  far 
end — she  is  very  high  church  and  always  attends 
— Maggie's  eyes  were  glued  almost  fiercely  to 
Miss  Emily's  back.  And  just  then  Miss  Emily 
herself  stirred,  glanced  up  at  the  window,  and 
turning  slightly,  returned  Maggie's  glance  with 
one  almost  as  malevolent.  I  have  hesitated  over 
that  word.  It  seems  strong  now,  but  at  the  time 
it  was  the  one  that  came  into  my  mind. 

When  it  was  over,  it  was  hard  to  believe  that 
it  had  happened.  And  even  now,  with  everything 
else  clear,  I  do  not  pretend  to  explain  Maggie's 
attitude.  She  knew,  in  some  strange  way.  But 
she  did  not  know  that  she  knew — which  sounds 
like  nonsense  and  is  as  near  as  I  can  come  to 
getting  it  down  in  words. 

Willie  left  that  night,  the  i6th,  and  we  settled 
down  to  quiet  days,  and,  for  a  time,  to  undis- 


THE  CONFESSION  191 

turbed  nights.  But  on  the  following  Wednesday, 
by  my  journal,  the  telephone  commenced  to  bother 
me  again.  Generally  speaking,  it  rang  rather 
early,  between  eleven  o'clock  and  midnight.  But 
on  the  following  Saturday  night  I  find  I  have 
recorded  the  hour  as  2  a.  m. 

In  every  instance  the  experience  was  identical. 
The  telephone  never  rang  the  second  time.  When 
I  went  downstairs  to  answer  it — I  did  not  always 
go — there  was  the  buzzing  of  the  wire,  and  there 
was  nothing  else.  It  was  on  the  twenty-fourth 
that  I  had  the  telephone  inspected  and  reported  in 
normal  condition,  and  it  is  possibly  significant 
that  for  three  days  afterward  my  record  shows 
not  a  single  disturbance. 

But  I  do  not  regard  the  strange  calls  over  the 
telephone  as  so  important  as  my  attitude  to  them. 
The  plain  truth  is  that  my  fear  of  the  calls  ex 
tended  itself  in  a  few  days  to  cover  the  instru 
ment,  and  more  than  that,  to  the  part  of  the 
house  it  stood  in.  Maggie  never  had  this,  nor  did 
she  recognize  it  in  me.  Her  fear  was  a  perfectly 
simple  although  uncomfortable  one,  centering 
around  the  bedrooms  where,  in  each  bed,  she 
nightly  saw  dead  and  gone  Bentons  laid  out  in  all 
the  decorum  of  the  best  linen. 

On  more  than  one  evening  she  came  to  the 
library  door,  with  an  expression  of  mentally  look- 


192 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

ing  over  her  shoulder,  and  some  such  dialogue 
would  follow: 

"D'you  mind  if  I  turn  the  bed  down  now,  Miss 
Agnes?" 

"It's  very  early." 

"S'almost  eight."  When  she  is  nervous  she 
cuts  verbal  corners. 

"You  know  perfectly  well  that  I  dislike  having 
the  beds  disturbed  until  nine  o'clock,  Maggie." 

"I'm  going  out." 

"You  said  that  last  night,  but  you  didn't  go." 

Silence. 

"Now,  see  here,  Maggie,  I  want  you  to  over 
come  this  feeling  of — "  I  hesitated — "of  fear. 
When  you  have  really  seen  or  heard  something, 
it  will  be  time  enough  to  be  nervous." 

"Humph!"  said  Maggie  on  one  of  these  oc 
casions,  and  edged  into  the  room.  It  was  grow 
ing  dusk.  "It  will  be  too  late  then,  Miss  Agnes. 
And  another  thing.  You're  a  brave  woman.  I 
don't  know  as  I've  seen  a  braver.  But  I  notice 
you  keep  away  from  the  telephone  after  dark." 

The  general  outcome  of  these  conversations 
was  that,  to  avoid  argument,  I  permitted  the 
preparation  of  my  room  for  the  night  at  an  ear 
lier  and  yet  earlier  hour,  until  at  last  it  was  done 
the  moment  I  was  dressed  for  dinner. 

It  is  clear  to  me  now  that  two  entirely  different 


THE  CONFESSION 193 

sorts  of  fear  actuated  us.  For  by  that  time  I 
had  to  acknowledge  that  there  was  fear  in  the 
house.  Even  Delia,  the  cook,  had  absorbed  some 
of  Maggie's  terror;  possibly  traceable  to  some 
early  impressions  of  death  which  connected  them 
selves  with  a  four-post  bedstead. 

Of  the  two  sorts  of  fear,  Delia's  and  Maggie's 
symptoms  were  subjective.  Mine,  I  still  feel, 
were  objective. 

It  was  not  long  before  the  beginning  of  August, 
and  during  a  lull  in  the  telephone  matter,  that  I 
began  to  suspect  that  the  house  was  being  visited 
at  night. 

There  was  nothing  I  could  point  to  with  any 
certainty  as  having  been  disturbed  at  first.  It 
was  a  matter  of  a  book  misplaced  on  the  table, 
of  my  sewing-basket  open  when  I  always  leave 
it  closed,  of  a  burnt  match  on  the  floor,  whereas 
it  is  one  of  my  orderly  habits  never  to  leave  burnt 
matches  around.  And  at  last  the  burnt  match 
became  a  sort  of  clue,  for  I  suspected  that  it  had 
been  used  to  light  one  of  the  candles  that  sat 
in  holders  of  every  sort,  on  the  top  of  the  library 
shelves. 

I  tried  getting  up  at  night  and  peering  over  the 
banisters,  but  without  result.  And  I  was  never 
sure  as  to  articles  that  they  had  been  moved.  I 


194 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

remained  in  that  doubting  and  suspicious  half 
way  ground  that  is  worse  than  certainty.  And 
there  was  the  matter  of  motive.  I  could  not  get 
away  from  that.  What  possible  purpose  could  an 
intruder  have,  for  instance,  in  opening  my  sew 
ing-basket  or  moving  the  dictionary  two  inches 
on  the  center  table? 

Yet  the  feeling  persisted,  and  on  the  second  of 
August  I  find  this  entry  in  my  journal : 

Right-hand  brass,  eight  inches;  left-hand  brass, 
seven  inches ;  carved-wood — Italian — five  and 
three  quarter  inches  each;  old  glass  on  mantel 
piece — seven  inches.  And  below  this,  dated  the 
third:  Last  night,  between  midnight  and  day 
light,  the  candle  in  the  glass  holder  on  the  right 
side  of  the  mantel  was  burned  down  one  and  one- 
half  inches. 

I  should,  no  doubt,  have  set  a  watch  on  my 
nightly  visitor  after  making  this  discovery — and 
one  that  was  apparently  connected  with  it — 
nothing  less  than  Delia's  report  that  there  were 
candle-droppings  over  the  border  of  the  library 
carpet.  But  I  have  admitted  that  this  is  a  study 
in  fear,  and  a  part  of  it  is  my  own. 

I  was  afraid.  I  was  afraid  of  the  night  visitor, 
but,  more  than  that,  I  was  afraid  of  the  fear. 
It  had  become  a  real  thing  by  that  time,  some 
thing  that  lurked  in  the  lower  back  hall  waiting 


THE  CONFESSION  195 

to  catch  me  by  the  throat,  to  stop  my  breath,  to 
paralyze  me  so  I  could  not  escape.  I  never  went 
beyond  that  point. 

Yet  I  am  not  a  cowardly  woman.  I  have  lived 
alone  too  long"  for  that.  I  have  closed  too  many 
houses  at  night  and  gone  upstairs  in  the  dark  to 
be  afraid  of  darkness.  And  even  now  I  can  not, 
looking  back,  admit  that  I  was  afraid  of  the  dark 
ness  there,  although  I  resorted  to  the  weak  ex 
pedient  of  leaving  a  short  length  of  candle  to 
burn  itself  out  in  the  hall  when  I  went  up  to  bed. 

I  have  seen  one  of  Willie's  boys  waken  up  at 
night  screaming  with  a  terror  he  could  not  de 
scribe.  Well,  it  was  much  like  that  with  me,  ex 
cept  that  I  was  awake  and  horribly  ashamed  of 
myself. 

On  the  fourth  of  August  I  find  in  my  journal 
the  single  word  "flour."  It  recalls  both  my  own 
cowardice  at  that  time,  and  an  experiment  I  made. 
The  telephone  had  not  bothered  us  for  several 
nights,  and  I  began  to  suspect  a  connection  of  this 
sort :  when  the  telephone  rang,  there  was  no  night 
visitor,  and  vice  versa.  I  was  not  certain. 

Delia  was  setting  bread  that  night  in  the 
kitchen,  and  Maggie  was  reading  a  ghost  story 
from  the  evening  paper.  There  was  a  fine  sift 
ing  of  flour  over  the  table,  and  it  gave  me  my 
idea.  When  I  went  up  to  bed  that  night,  I  left  a 


196 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

powdering  of  flour  here  and  there  on  the  lower 
floor,  at  the  door  into  the  library,  a  patch  by  the 
table,  and — going  back  rather  uneasily — one  near 
the  telephone. 

I  was  up  and  downstairs  before  Maggie  the 
next  morning.  The  patches  showed  trampling. 
In  the  doorway  they  were  almost  obliterated,  as 
by  the  trailing  of  a  garment  over  them,  but  by 
the  fireplace  there  were  two  prints  quite  distinct. 
I  knew  when  I  saw  them  that  I  had  expected  the 
marks  of  Miss  Emily's  tiny  foot,  although  I  had 
not  admitted  it  before.  But  these  were  not  Miss 
Emily's.  They  were  large,  flat,  substantial,  and 
one  showed  a  curious  marking  around  the  edge 

that It  was  my  own !  The  marking  was  the 

knitted  side  of  my  bedroom  slipper.  I  had,  so 
far  as  I  could  tell,  gone  downstairs,  in  the  night, 
investigated  the  candles,  possibly  in  darkness, 
and  gone  back  to  bed  again. 

The  effect  of  the  discovery  on  me  was — well 
undermining.  In  all  the  uneasiness  of  the  past 
few  weeks  I  had  at  least  had  full  confidence  in 
myself.  And  now  that  was  gone.  I  began  to 
wonder  how  much  of  the  things  that  had  troubled 
me  were  real,  and  how  many  I  had  made  for 
myself. 

To  tell  the  truth,  by  that  time  the  tension  was 
almost  unbearable.  My  nerves  were  going,  and 


THE  CONFESSION 197 

there  was  no  reason  for  it.  I  kept  telling  myself 
that.  In  the  mirror  I  looked  white  and  anxious, 
and  I  had  a  sense  of  approaching  trouble.  I 
caught  Maggie  watching  me,  too,  and  on  the 
seventh  I  find  in  my  journal  the  words:  "Insan 
ity  is  often  only  a  formless  terror." 

On  the  Sunday  morning  following  that  I  found 
three  burnt  matches  in  the  library  fireplace,  and 
one  of  the  candles  in  the  brass  holders  was  al 
most  gone.  I  sat  most  of  the  day  in  that  room, 
wondering  what  would  happen  to  me  if  I  lost  my 
mind.  I  knew  that  Maggie  was  watching  me, 
and  I  made  one  of  those  absurd  hypotheses  to 
myself  that  we  all  do  at  times.  If  any  of  the 
family  came,  I  would  know  that  she  had  sent  for 
them,  and  that  I  was  really  deranged!  It  had 
been  a  long  day,  with  a  steady  summer  rain  that 
had  not  cooled  the  earth,  but  only  set  it  steaming. 
The  air  was  like  hot  vapor,  and  my  hair  clung 
to  my  moist  forehead.  At  about  four  o'clock 
Maggie  started  chasing  a  fly  with  a  folded  news 
paper.  She  followed  it  about  the  lower  floor 
from  room  to  room,  making  little  harsh  noises 
in  her  throat  when  she  missed  it.  The  sound  of 
the  soft  thud  of  the  paper  on  walls  and  furni 
ture  seemed  suddenly  more  than  I  could  bear. 

"For  heaven's  sake !"  I  cried.    "Stop  that  noise, 


198 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

Maggie."  I  felt  as  though  my  eyes  were  start 
ing  from  my  head. 

"It's  a  fly/'  she  said  doggedly,  and  aimed  an 
other  blow  at  it.  "If  I  don't  kill  it,  we'll  have  a 
million.  There,  it's  on  the  mantel  now.  I 
never " 

I  felt  that  if  she  raised  the  paper  club  once 
more  I  should  scream.  So  I  got  up  quickly  and 
caught  her  wrist.  She  was  so  astonished  that 
she  let  the  paper  drop,  and  there  we  stood,  star 
ing  at  each  other.  I  can  still  see  the  way  her 
mouth  hung  open. 

"Don't !"  I  said.  And  my  voice  sounded  thick 
even  to  my  own  ears.  "Maggie — I  can't  stand 
it!" 

"My  God,  Miss  Agnes !' 

Her  tone  brought  me  up  sharply.  I  released 
her  arm. 

"I — I'm  just  nervous,  Maggie,"  I  said,  and 
sat  down.  I  was  trembling  violently. 

I  was  sane.  I  knew  it  then  as  I  know  it  now. 
But  I  was  not  rational.  Perhaps  to  most  of  us 
come  now  and  then  times  when  they  realize  that 
some  act,  or  some  thought,  is  not  balanced,  as 
though,  for  a  moment  or  an  hour,  the  control 
was  gone  from  the  brain.  Or — and  I  think  this 
was  the  feeling  I  had — that  some  other  control 
was  in  charge.  Not  the  Agnes  Blakiston  I  knew, 


THE  CONFESSION 199 

but  another  Agnes  Blakiston,  perhaps,  was  exert 
ing  a  temporary  dominance,  a  hectic,  craven,  and 
hateful  control. 

That  is  the  only  outburst  I  recall.  Possibly 
Maggie  may  have  others  stored  away.  She  has 
a  tenacious  memory.  Certainly  it  was  my  nearest 
approach  to  violence.  But  it  had  the  effect  of 
making  me  set  a  watch  on  myself. 

Possibly  it  was  coincidence.  Probably,  how 
ever,  Maggie  had  communicated  with  Willie. 
But  two  days  later  young  Martin  Sprague,  Freda 
Sprague's  son,  stopped  his  car  in  the  drive  and 
came  in.  He  is  a  nerve  specialist,  and  very  good, 
although  I  can  remember  when  he  came  down 
in  his  night  drawers  to  one  of  his  mother's  din 
ner-parties. 

"Thought  I  would  just  run  in  and  see  you," 
he  said.  "Mother  told  me  you  were  here.  By 
George,  Miss  Agnes,  you  look  younger  than 


ever." 


"Who  told  you  to  come,  Martie?"  I  asked. 

"Told  me?  I  don't  have  to  be  told  to  visit  an 
old  friend." 

Well,  he  asked  himself  to  lunch,  and  looked 
over  the  house,  and  decided  to  ask  Miss  Emily 
if  she  would  sell  an  old  Japanese  cabinet  inlaid 
with  mother  of  pearl  that  I  would  not  have  had 
as  a  gift.  And,  in  the  end,  I  told  him  my  trouble, 


200  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

of  the  fear  that  seemed  to  center  around  the 
telephone,  and  the  sleep-walking. 

He  listened  carefully. 

"Ever  get  any  bad  news  over  the  telephone  ?" 
he  asked. 

One  way  and  another,  I  said  I  had  had  plenty 
of  it.  He  went  over  me  thoroughly,  and  was 
inclined  to  find  my  experience  with  the  flour 
rather  amusing  than  otherwise.  "It's  rather 
good,  that,"  he  said.  "Setting  a  trap  to  catch 
yourself.  You'd  better  have  Maggie  sleep  in 
your  room  for  a  while.  Well,  it's  all  pretty  plain, 
Miss  Agnes.  We  bury  some  things  as  deep  as 
possible,  especially  if  we  don't  want  to  remember 
that  they  ever  happened.  But  the  mind's  a  queer 
thing.  It  holds  on  pretty  hard,  and  burying  is 
not  destroying.  Then  we  get  tired  or  nervous — 
maybe  just  holding  the  thing  down  and  pretend 
ing  it  is  not  there  makes  us  nervous — and  up  it 
pops,  like  the  ghost  of  a  buried  body,  and  raises 
hell.  You  don't  mind  that,  do  you?"  he  added 
anxiously.  "It's  exactly  what  those  things  do 


raise." 


"But,"  I  demanded  irritably,  "who  rings  the 
telephone  at  night?  I  daresay  you  don't  con 
tend  that  I  go  out  at  night  and  call  the  house, 
and  then  come  back  and  answer  the  call,  do 


you?" 


THE  CONFESSION  201 

He  looked  at  me  with  a  maddening  smile. 

"Are  you  sure  it  really  rings?"  he  asked. 

And  so  bad  was  my  nervous  condition  by  that 
time,  so  undermined  was  my  self-confidence,  that 
I  was  not  certain!  And  this  in  face  of  the  fact 
that  it  invariably  roused  Maggie  as  well  as  my 
self. 

On  the  eleventh  of  August  Miss  Emily  came 
to  tea.  The  date  does  not  matter,  but  by  fol 
lowing  the  chronology  of  my  journal  I  find  I 
can  keep  my  narrative  in  proper  sequence. 

I  had  felt  better  that  day.  So  far  as  I  could 
determine,  I  had  not  walked  in  my  sleep  again, 
and  there  was  about  Maggie  an  air  of  cheerful 
ness  and  relief  which  showed  that  my  condition 
was  more  nearly  normal  than  it  had  been  for  some 
time.  The  fear  of  the  telephone  and  of  the  back 
hall  was  leaving  me,  too.  Perhaps  Martin 
Sprague's  matter-of-fact  explanation  had  helped 
me.  But  my  own  theory  had  always  been  the 
one  I  recorded  at  the  beginning  of  this  narra 
tive — that  I  caught  and — well,  registered  is  a 
good  word — that  I  registered  an  overwhelming 
fear  from  some  unknown  source. 

I  spied  Miss  Emily  as  she  got  out  of  the  hack 
that  day,  a  cool  little  figure  clad  in  a  thin  black 
silk  dress,  with  the  sheerest  possible  white  collars 
and  cuffs.  Her  small  bonnet  with  its  crepe  veil 


202 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

was  faced  with  white,  and  her  carefully  crimped 
gray  hair  showed  a  wavy  border  beneath  it.  Mr. 
Staley,  the  station  hackman,  helped  her  out  of  the 
surrey,  and  handed  her  the  knitting-bag  without 
which  she  was  seldom  seen.  It  was  two  weeks 
since  she  had  been  there,  and  she  came  slowly  up 
the  walk,  looking  from  side  to  side  at  the  peren 
nial  borders,  then  in  full  August  bloom. 

She  smiled  when  she  saw  me  in  the  doorway, 
and  said,  with  the  little  anxious  pucker  between 
her  eyes  that  was  so  childish,  "Don't  you  think 
peonies  are  better  cut  down  at  this  time  of  year  ?" 
She  took  a  folded  handkerchief  from  her  bag  and 
dabbed  at  her  face,  where  there  was  no  sign  of 
dust  to  mar  its  old  freshness.  "It  gives  the  lilies 
a  better  chance,  my  dear/' 

I  led  her  into  the  house,  and  she  produced  a 
gay  bit  of  knitting,  a  baby  afghan,  by  the  signs. 
She  smiled  at  me  over  it. 

"I  am  always  one  baby  behind,"  she  explained 
and  fell  to  work  rapidly.  She  had  lovely  hands, 
and  I  suspected  them  of  being  her  one  vanity. 

Maggie  was  serving  tea  with  her  usual  grudg 
ing  reluctance,  and  I  noticed  then  that  when  she 
was  in  the  room  Miss  Emily  said  little  or  nothing. 
I  thought  it  probable  that  she  did  not  approve  of 
conversing  before  servants,  and  would  have  let 


THE  CONFESSION 203 

it  go  at  that,  had  I  not,  as  I  held  out  Miss  Emily's 
cup,  caught  her  looking  at  Maggie.  I  had  a 
swift  impression  of  antagonism  again,  of  alert 
ness  and  something  more.  When  Maggie  went 
out,  Miss  Emily  turned  to  me. 

"She  is  very  capable,  I  fancy/' 

"Very.    Entirely  too  capable." 

"She  looks  sharp,"  said  Miss  Emily.  It  was 
a  long  time  since  I  had  heard  the  word  so  used, 
but  it  was  very  apt.  Maggie  was  indeed  sharp. 
But  Miss  Emily  launched  into  a  general  disser 
tation  on  servants,  and  Maggie's  sharpness  was 
forgotten. 

It  -vvas,  I  think,  when  she  was  about  to  go  that 
I  asked  her  about  the  telephone. 

"Telephone?"  she  inquired.  "Why,  no.  It  has 
always  done  very  well.  Of  course,  after  a  heavy 
snow  in  the  winter,  sometimes " 

She  had  a  fashion  of  leaving  her  sentences  un 
finished.  They  trailed  off,  without  any  abrupt 
break. 

"It  rings  at  night." 

"Rings?" 

"I  am  called  frequently  and  when  I  get  to  the 
phone,  there  is  no  one  there." 

Some  of  my  irritation  doubtless  got  into  my 
voice,  for  Miss  Emily  suddenly  drew  away  and 
stared  at  me. 


204  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

"But — that  is  very  strange.     I " 

She  had  gone  pale.  I  saw  that  now.  And  quite 
suddenly  she  dropped  her  knitting-bag.  When 
I  restored  it  to  her,  she  was  very  calm  and  poised, 
but  her  color  had  not  come  back. 

"It  has  always  been  very  satisfactory,"  she 
said.  "I  don't  know  that  it  ever " 

She  considered,  and  began  again.  "Why  not 
just  ignore  it?  If  some  one  is  playing  a  malicious 
trick  on  you,  the  only  thing  is  to  ignore  it." 

Her  hands  were  shaking,  although  her  voice 
was  quiet.  I  saw  that  when  she  tried  to  tie  the 
ribbons  of  the  bag.  And — I  wondered  at  this,  in 
so  gentle  a  soul — there  was  a  hint  of  anger  in  her 
tones.  There  was  an  edge  to  her  voice. 

That  she  could  be  angry  was  a  surprise.  And 
I  found  that  she  could  also  be  obstinate.  For  we 
came  to  an  impasse  over  the  telephone  in  the  next 
few  minutes,  and  over  something  so  absurd  that 
I  was  non-plussed.  It  was  over  her  unqualified 
refusal  to  allow  me  to  install  a  branch  wire  to 
my  bedroom. 

"But,"  I  expostulated,  "when  one  thinks  of  the 
convenience,  and " 

"I  am  sorry."  Her  voice  had  a  note  of  final 
ity.  "I  daresay  I  am  old-fashioned,  but — I  do 
not  like  changes.  I  shall  have  to  ask  you  not  to 
interfere  with  the  telephone." 


THE  CONFESSION 205 

I  could  hardly  credit  my  senses.  Her  tone  was 
one  of  reproof,  plus  decision.  It  convicted  me  of 
an  indiscretion.  If  I  had  asked  to  take  the  roof 
off  and  replace  it  with  silk  umbrellas,  it  might 
have  been  justified.  But  to  a  request  to  move  the 
telephone ! 

"Of  course,  if  you  feel  that  way  about  it,"  I 
said,  "I  shall  not  touch  it." 

I  dropped  the  subject,  a  trifle  ruffled,  I  confess, 
and  went  upstairs  to  fetch  a  box  in  which  Miss 
Emily  was  to  carry  away  some  flowers  from  the 
garden. 

It  was  when  I  was  coming  down  the  staircase 
that  I  saw  Maggie.  She  had  carried  the  hall 
candlesticks,  newly  polished,  to  their  places  on  the 
table,  and  was  standing,  a  hand  on  each  one,  star 
ing  into  the  old  Washington  mirror  in  front  of 
her.  From  where  she  was  she  must  have  had  a 
full  view  of  Miss  Emily  in  the  library.  And 
Maggie  was  bristling.  It  was  the  only  word 
for  it. 

She  was  still  there  when  Miss  Emily  had  gone, 
blowing  on  the  mirror  and  polishing  it.  And  I 
took  her  to  task  for  her  unfriendly  attitude  to 
the  little  old  lady. 

"You  practically  threw  her  muffins  at  her,"  I 
said.  "And  I  must  speak  again  about  the 
cups " 


206 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

"What  does  she  come  snooping  around  for, 
anyhow?"  she  broke  in.  "Aren't  we  paying  for 
her  house?  Didn't  she  get  down  on  her  bended 
knees  and  beg  us  to  take  it  ?" 

"Is  that  any  reason  why  we  should  be  un 
civil?" 

"What  I  want  to  know  is  this/'  Maggie  said 
truculently.  "What  right  has  she  to  come  back, 
and  spy  on  us?  For  that's  what  she's  doing, 
Miss  Agnes.  Do  you  know  what  she  was  at 
when  I  looked  in  at  her?  She  was  running  a 
finger  along  the  baseboard  to  see  if  it  was  clean ! 
And  what's  more,  I  caught  her  at  it  once  before, 
in  the  back  hall,  when  she  was  pretending  to  tele 
phone  for  the  station  hack." 

It  was  that  day,  I  think,  that  I  put  fresh  candles 
in  all  the  holders  downstairs.  I  had  made  a  reso 
lution  like  this, — to  renew  the  candles,  and  to 
lock  myself  in  my  room  and  throw  the  key 
over  the  transom  to  Maggie.  If,  in  the  morn 
ings  that  followed,,  the  candles  had  been  used, 
it  would  prove  that  Martin  Sprague  was  wrong, 
that  even  foot-prints  could  lie,  and  that  some 
one  was  investigating  the  lower  floor  at  night. 
For  while  my  reason  told  me  that  I  had  been 
the  intruder,  my  intuition  continued  to  insist 
that  my  sleepwalking  was  a  result,  not  a  cause. 
In  a  word,  I  had  gone  downstairs,  because  I  knew 


THE  CONFESSION  207 

that  there  had  been  and  might  be  again,  a  night 
visitor. 

Yet,  there  was  something  of  comedy  in  that 
night's  precautions,  after  all. 

At  ten-thirty  I  was  undressed,  and  Maggie 
had,  with  rebellion  in  every  line  of  her,  locked  me 
in.  I  could  hear  her,  afterwards  running  along 
the  hall  to  her  own  room  and  slamming  the  door. 
Then,  a  moment  later,  the  telephone  rang. 

It  was  too  early,  I  reasoned,  for  the  night  calls. 
It  might  be  anything,  a  telegram  at  the  station, 
Willie's  boy  run  over  by  an  automobile,  Ger 
trude's  children  ill.  A  dozen  possibilities  ran 
through  my  mind. 

And  Maggie  would  not  let  me  out ! 

"You're  not  going  downstairs,"  she  called, 
from  a  safe  distance. 

"Maggie!"  I  cried,  sharply.  And  banged  at 
the  door.  The  telephone  was  ringing  steadily. 
"Come  here  at  once." 

"Miss  Agnes,"  she  beseeched,  "you  go  to  bed 
and  don't  listen.  There'll  be  nothing  there,  for 
all  your  trouble,"  she  said,  in  a  quavering  voice. 
"It's  nothing  human  that  rings  that  bell." 

Finally,  however,  she  freed  me,  and  I  went 
down  the  stairs.  I  had  carried  down  a  lamp, 
and  my  nerves  were  vibrating  to  the  rhythm  of 
the  bell's  shrill  summons.  But,  strangely  enough, 


208 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

the  fear  had  left  me.  I  find,  as  always,  that  it  is 
difficult  to  put  into  words.  I  did  not  relish  the 
excursion  to  the  lower  floor.  I  resented  the  jar 
ring  sound  of  the  bell.  But  the  terror  was  gone. 

I  went  back  to  the  telephone.  Something  that 
was  living  and  moving  was  there.  I  saw  its  eyes, 
lower  than  mine,  reflecting  the  lamp  like  twin 
lights.  I  was  frightened,  but  still  it  was  not  the 
fear.  The  twin  lights  leaped  forward — and 
proved  to  be  the  eyes  of  Miss  Emily's  cat,  which 
had  been  sleeping  on  the  stand ! 

I  answered  the  telephone.  To  my  surprise  it 
was  Miss  Emily  herself,  a  quiet  and  very  digni 
fied  voice  which  apologized  for  disturbing  me  at 
that  hour,  and  went  on : 

"I  feel  that  I  was  very  abrupt  this  afternoon, 
Miss  Blakiston.  My  excuse  is  that  I  have  al 
ways  feared  change.  I  have  lived  in  a  rut  too 
long,  I'm  afraid.  But  of  course,  if  you  feel  you 
would  like  to  move  the  telephone,  or  put  in  an 
upstairs  instrument,  you  may  do  as  you  like." 

She  seemed,  having  got  me  there,  unwilling  to 
ring  off.  I  got  a  curious  effect  of  reluctance  over 
the  telephone,  and  there  was  one  phrase  that  she 
repeated  several  times. 

"I  do  not  want  to  influence  you.  I  want  you 
to  do  just  what  you  think  best." 


THE  CONFESSION 209 

The  fear  was  entirely  gone  by  the  time  she 
rang  off.  I  felt,  instead,  a  sort  of  relaxation  that 
was  most  comforting.  The  rear  hall,  a  cul-de-sac 
of  nervousness  in  the  daytime  and  of  horror  at 
night,  was  suddenly  transformed  by  the  light  of 
my  lamp  into  a  warm  and  cheerful  refuge  from 
the  darkness  of  the  lower  floor.  The  purring  of 
the  cat,  comfortably  settled  on  the  telephone- 
stand,  was  as  cheering  as  the  singing  of  a  kettle 
on  a  stove.  On  the  rack  near  me  my  garden  hat 
and  an  old  Paisley  shawl  made  a  grotesque  hu 
man  effigy. 

I  sat  back  in  the  low  wicker  chair  and  surveyed 
the  hallway.  Why  not,  I  considered,  do  away 
now  with  the  fear  of  it?  If  I  could  conquer  it 
like  this  at  midnight,  I  need  never  succumb  again 
to  it  in  the  light. 

The  cat  leaped  to  the  stand  beside  me  and 
stood  there,  waiting.  He  was  an  intelligent  ani 
mal,  and  I  am  like  a  good  many  spinsters.  I  am 
not  more  fond  of  cats  than  other  people,  but  I 
understand  them  better.  And  it  seemed  to  me 
that  he  and  I  were  going  through  some  familiar 
program,  of  which  a  part  had  been  neglected. 
The  cat  neither  sat  nor  lay,  but  stood  there,  wait 
ing. 

So  at  last  I  fetched  the  shawl  from  the  rack  and 
made  him  a  bed  on  the  stand.  It  was  what  he  had 


210 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

been  waiting  for.  I  saw  that  at  once.  He  walked 
onto  it,  turned  around  once,  lay  down,  and  closed 
his  eyes. 

I  took  up  my  vigil.  I  had  been  the  victim  of 
a  fear  I  was  determined  to  conquer.  The  house 
was  quiet.  Maggie  had  retired  shriveled  to  bed. 
The  cat  slept  on  the  shawl. 

And  then — I  felt  the  fear  returning.  It  welled 
up  through  my  tranquillity  like  a  flood,  and  swept 
me  with  it.  I  wanted  to  shriek.  I  was  afraid  to 
shriek.  I  longed  to  escape.  I  dared  not  move. 
There  had  been  no  sound,  no  motion.  Things 
were  as  they  had  been. 

It  may  have  been  one  minute  or  five  that  I 
sat  there.  I  do  not  know.  I  only  know  that  I 
sat  with  fixed  eyes,  not  even  blinking,  for  fear 
of  even  for  a  second  shutting  out  the  sane  and 
visible  world  about  me.  A  sense  of  deadness 
commenced  in  my  hands  and  worked  up  my  arms. 
My  chest  seemed  flattened. 

Then  the  telephone  bell  rang. 

The  cat  leaped  to  his  feet.  Somehow  I  reached 
forward  and  took  down  the  receiver. 

"Who  is  it?"  I  cried,  in  a  voice  that  was  thin, 
I  knew,  and  unnatural. 

The  telephone  is  not  a  perfect  medium.  It 
loses  much  that  we  wish  to  register  but,  also,  it 
registers  much  that  we  may  wish  to  lose.  There- 


THE  CONFESSION  211 

fore  when  I  say  that  I  distinctly  heard  a  gasp, 
followed  by  heavy  difficult  breathing,  over  the 
telephone,  I  must  beg  for  credence.  It  is  true. 
Some  one  at  the  other  end  of  the  line  was  strug 
gling  for  breath. 

Then  there  was  complete  silence.  I  realized, 
after  a  moment,  that  the  circuit  had  been  stealth 
ily  cut,  and  that  my  conviction  was  verified  by 
Central's  demand,  a  moment  later,  of  what  num 
ber  I  wanted.  I  was,  at  first,  unable  to  answer 
her.  When  I  did  speak,  my  voice  was  shaken. 

"What  number,  please?"  she  repeated,  in  a 
bored  tone.  There  is  nothing  in  all  the  world  so 
bored  as  the  voice  of  a  small  town  telephone- 
operator. 

"You  called,"  I  said. 

"Beg  y'pardon.  Must  have  been  a  mistake," 
she  replied  glibly,  and  cut  me  off. 


ii 


It  may  be  said,  and  with  truth,  that  so  far  I 
have  recorded  little  but  subjective  terror,  possibly 
easily  explained  by  my  occupancy  of  an  isolated 
house,  plus  a  few  unimportant  incidents,  capable 
of  various  interpretations.  But  the  fear  was, 
and  is  today  as  I  look  back,  a  real  thing.  As  real 


212 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

— and  as  difficult  to  describe — as  a  chill,  for  in 
stance.  A  severe  mental  chill  it  was,  indeed. 

I  went  upstairs  finally  to  a  restless  night,  and 
rose  early,  after  only  an  hour  or  so  of  sleep.  One 
thing  I  was  determined  on — to  find  out,  if  pos 
sible,  the  connection  between  the  terror  and  the 
telephone.  I  breakfasted  early,  and  was  dressing 
to  go  to  the  village  when  I  had  a  visitor,  no  other 
than  Miss  Emily  herself.  She  looked  fluttered 
and  perturbed  at  the  unceremonious  hour  of  her 
visit — she  was  the  soul  of  convention — and  ex 
plained,  between  breaths  as  it  were,  that  she  had 
come  to  apologize  for  the  day  before.  She  had 
hardly  slept.  I  must  forgive  her.  She  had  been 
very  nervous  since  her  brother's  death,  and  small 
things  upset  her. 

How  much  of  what  I  say  of  Miss  Emily  de 
pends  on  my  later  knowledge,  I  wonder?  Did  I 
notice  then  that  she  was  watching  me  furtively, 
or  is  it  only  on  looking  back  that  I  recall  it?  I 
do  recall  it — the  hall  door  open  and  a  vista  of 
smiling  garden  beyond,  and  silhouetted  against 
the  sunshine,  Miss  Emily's  frail  figure  and 
searching,  slightly  uplifted  face.  There  was 
something  in  her  eyes  that  I  had  not  seen  before 
— a  sort  of  exaltation.  She  was  not,  that  morn 
ing,  the  Miss  Emily  who  ran  a  finger  along  her 
baseboards  to  see  if  we  dusted  them. 


THE  CONFESSION  213 

She  had  walked  out,  and  it  had  exhausted  her. 
She  breathed  in  little  gasps. 

"I  think,"  she  said  at  last,  "that  I  must  tele 
phone  for  Mr.  Staley,  I  am  never  very  strong  in 
hot  weather." 

"Please  let  me  call  him  for  you,  Miss  Emily/' 

I  am  not  a  young  woman,  and  she  was  at  least 
sixty-five.  But,  because  she  was  so  small  and 
frail,  I  felt  almost  a  motherly  anxiety  for  her  that 
morning. 

"I  think  I  should  like  to  do  it,  if  you  don't  mind. 
We  are  old  friends.  He  always  comes  promptly 
when  I  call  him." 

She  went  back  alone,  and  I  waited  in  the  door 
way.  When  she  came  out,  she  was  smiling,  and 
there  was  more  color  in  her  face. 

"He  is  coming  at  once.  He  is  always  very 
thoughtful  for  me." 

Now,  without  any  warning,  something  thai 
had  been  seething  since  her  breathless  arrival 
took  shape  in  my  mind,  and  became — suspicion. 
What  if  it  had  been  Miss  Emily  who  had  called 
me  the  second  time  to  the  telephone,  and  having 
established  the  connection,  had  waited,  breathing 
hard  for — what? 

It  was  fantastic,  incredible  in  the  light  of  that 
brilliant  summer  day.  I  looked  at  her,  dainty  and 
exquisite  as  ever,  her  ruchings  fresh  and  white, 


214 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

her  very  face  indicative  of  decorum  and  order, 
her  wistful  old  mouth  still  rather  like  a  child's, 
her  eyes,  always  slightly  upturned  because  of  her 
diminutive  height,  so  that  she  had  habitually  a 
look  of  adoration. 

"One  of  earth's  saints,"  the  rector  had  said  to 
me  on  Sunday  morning.  "A  good  woman,  Miss 
Blakiston,  and  a  sacrifice  to  an  unworthy  fam- 
ily." 

Suspicion  is  like  the  rain.  It  falls  on  the  just 
and  on  the  unjust.  And  that  morning  I  began  to 
suspect  Miss  Emily.  I  had  no  idea  of  what. 

On  my  mentioning  an  errand  in  the  village  she 
promptly  offered  to  take  me  with  her  in  the  Sta- 
ley  hack.  She  had  completely  altered  in  man 
ner.  The  strain  was  gone.  In  her  soft  low  voice, 
as  we  made  our  way  to  the  road,  she  told  me  the 
stories  of  some  of  the  garden  flowers. 

"The  climbing  rose  over  the  arch,  my  dear," 
she  said,  "my  mother  brought  from  England  on 
her  wedding  journey.  People  have  taken  cuttings 
from  it  again  and  again,  but  the  cuttings  never 
thrive.  A  bad  winter,  and  they  are  gone.  But 
this  one  has  lived.  Of  course  now  and  then  it 
freezes  down." 

She  chattered  on,  and  my  suspicions  grew 
more  and  more  shadowy.  They  would  have  gone, 


THE  CONFESSION  215 

I  think,  had  not  Maggie  called  me  back  with  a 
grocery  list. 

"A  sack  of  flour,"  she  said,  "and  some  green 
vegetables,  and — Miss  Agnes,  that  woman  was 
down  on  her  knees  beside  the  telephone! — and 
bluing  for  the  laundry,  and  I  guess  that's  all." 

The  telephone!  It  was  always  the  telephone. 
We  drove  on  down  the  lane,  eyed  somnolently  by 
spotted  cows  and  incurious  sheep,  and  all  the  way 
Miss  Emily  talked.  She  was  almost  garrulous. 
She  asked  the  hackman  about  his  family  and 
stopped  the  vehicle  to  pick  up  a  pedler,  overbur 
dened  with  his  pack.  I  watched  her  with  amaze 
ment.  Evidently  this  was  Mr.  Staley's  Miss 
Emily.  But  it  was  not  mine. 

But  I  saw  mine,  too,  that  morning.  It  was 
when  I  asked  the  hackman  to  put  me  down  at  the 
little  telephone  building.  I  thought  she  put  her 
hand  to  her  throat,  although  the  next  moment  she 
was  only  adjusting  the  ruchingr  at  her  neck. 

"You — you  have  decided  to  have  the  second 
telephone  put  in,  then?" 

I  hesitated.  She  so  obviously  did  not  want  it 
installed.  And  was  I  to  submit  meekly  to  the 
fear  again,  without  another  effort  to  vanquish 
it? 

"I  think  not,  dear  Miss  Emily,"  I  said  at  last, 
smiling  at  her  drawn  face.  "Why  should  I  dis- 


216 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

turb  your  lovely  old  house  and  its  established 
order?" 

"But  I  want  you  to  do  just  what  you  think 
best,"  she  protested.  She  had  put  her  hands  to 
gether.  It  was  almost  a  supplication. 

As  to  the  strange  night  calls,  there  was  little 
to  be  learned.  The  night  operator  was  in  bed. 
The  manager  made  a  note  of  my  complaint,  and 
promised  an  investigation,  which,  having  had  ex 
perience  with  telephone  investigations,  I  felt 
would  lead  nowhere.  I  left  the  building,  with  my 
grocery  list  in  my  hand. 

The  hack  was  gone,  of  course.  But — I  may 
have  imagined  it — I  thought  I  saw  Miss  Emily 
peering  at  me  from  behind  the  bonnets  and  hats 
in  the  milliner's  window. 

I  did  not  investigate.  The  thing  was  enough 
on  my  nerves  as  it  was. 

Maggie  served  me  my  luncheon  in  a  sort  of 
strained  silence.  She  observed  once,  as  she 
brought  me  my  tea,  that  she  was  giving  me  notice 
and  intended  leaving  on  the  afternoon  train.  She 
had,  she  stated,  holding  out  the  sugar-bowl  to  me 
at  arm's  length,  stood  a  great  deal  in  the  way  of 
irregular  hours  from  me,  seeing  as  I  would  read 
myself  to  sleep,  and  let  the  light  burn  all  night, 
although  very  fussy  about  the  gas-bills.  But  she 
had  reached  the  end  of  her  tether,  and  you  could 


THE  CONFESSION  217 

grate  a  lemon  on  her  most  anywhere,  she  was  that 
covered  with  goose-flesh. 

"Goose-flesh  about  what  ?"  I  demanded.  "And 
either  throw  the  sugar  to  me  or  come  closer.'* 

"I  don't  know  about  what,"  she  said  sullenly. 
'Tm  just  scared." 

And  for  once  Maggie  and  I  were  in  complete 
harmony.  I,  too,  was  "just  scared." 

We  were,  however,  both  of  us  much  nearer  a 
solution  of  our  troubles  than  we  had  any  idea 
of.  I  say  solution,  although  it  but  substituted 
one  mystery  for  another.  It  gave  tangibility  to 
the  intangible,  indeed,  but  I  can  not  see  that  our 
situation  was  any  better.  I,  for  one,  found  my 
self  in  the  position  of  having  a  problem  to  solve, 
and  no  formula  to  solve  it  with. 

The  afternoon  was  quiet.  Maggie  and  the 
cook  were  in  the  throes  of  jelly-making,  and  I  had 
picked  up  a  narrative  history  of  the  county,  writ 
ten  most  pedantically,  although  with  here  and 
there  a  touch  of  heavy  lightness,  by  Miss  Emily's 
father,  the  Reverend  Samuel  Thaddeus  Benton. 

On  the  fly-leaf  she  had  inscribed,  "Written  by 
my  dear  father  during  the  last  year  of  his  life, 
and  published  after  his  death  by  the  parish  to 
which  he  had  given  so  much  of  his  noble  life." 

The  book  left  me  cold,  but  the  inscription 
warmed  me.  Whatever  feeling  I  might  have  had 


218  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

about  Miss  Emily  died  of  that  inscription.  A  de 
voted  and  self-sacrificing  daughter,  a  woman 
both  loving  and  beloved,  that  was  the  Miss 
Emily  of  the  dedication  to  "Fifty  years  in  Boli 
var  County/' 

In  the  middle  of  the  afternoon  Maggie  ap 
peared,  with  a  saucer  and  a  teaspoon.  In  the 
saucer  she  had  poured  a  little  of  the  jelly  to  test 
it,  and  she  was  blowing  on  it  when  she  entered, 
I  put  down  my  book. 

"Well!"  I  said.  "Don't  tell  me  you're  not 
dressed  yet.  You've  just  got  about  time  for  the 
afternoon  train." 

She  gave  me  an  imploring  glance  over  the 
saucer. 

"You  might  just  take  a  look  at  this,  Miss 
Agnes,"  she  said.  "It  jells  around  the  edges,  but 
in  the  middle " 

"I'll  send  your  trunk  tomorrow,"  I  said,  "and 
you'd  better  let  Delia  make  the  jelly  alone.  You 
haven't  much  time,  and  she  says  she  makes  good 
jelly." 

She  raised  anguished  eyes  to  mine. 

"Miss  Agnes,"  she  said,  "that  woman's  never 
made  a  glass  of  jelly  in  her  life  before.  She 
didn't  even  know  about  putting  a  silver  spoon  in 
the  tumblers  to  keep  'em  from  breaking." 

I  picked  up  "Bolivar  County"  and  opened  it, 


THE  CONFESSION  219 

but  I  could  see  that  the  hands  holding  the  saucer 
were  shaking. 

"I'm  not  going,  Miss  Agnes,"  said  Maggie. 
(I  had,  of  course,  known  she  would  not.  The  sur 
prising  thing  to  me  is  that  she  never  learns  this 
fact,  although  she  gives  me  notice  quite  regu 
larly.  She  always  thinks  that  she  is  really  going, 
until  the  last.)  "Of  course  you  can  let  that 
woman  make  the  jelly,  if  you  want.  It's  your 
fruit  and  sugar.  But  I'm  not  going  to  desert  you 
in  your  hour  of  need." 

"What  do  I  need?"  I  demanded.    "Jelly?" 

But  §he  was  past  sarcasm.  She  placed  the 
saucer  on  a  table  and  rolled  her  stained  hands  in 
her  apron. 

"That  woman,"  she  said,  "what  was  she  doing 
under  the  telephone  stand?" 

She  almost  immediately  burst  into  tears,  and 
it  was  some  time  before  I  caught  what  she  feared. 
For  she  was  more  concrete  than  I.  And  she 
knew  now  what  she  was  afraid  of.  It  was  either 
a  bomb  or  fire. 

"Mark  my  wrords,  Miss  Agnes,"  she  said, 
"she's  going  to  destroy  the  place.  What  made 
her  set  out  and  rent  it  for  almost  nothing  if  she 
isn't?  And  I  know  who  rings  the  telephone  at 
night.  It's  her." 


220 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

"What  on  earth  for  ?"  I  demanded  as  ungram- 
matical  and  hardly  less  uneasy  than  Maggie. 

"She  wakes  us  up,  so  we  can  get  out  in  time. 
She's  a  preacher's  daughter.  More  than  likely 
she  draws  the  line  at  bloodshed.  That's  one  rea 
son.  Maybe  there's  another.  What  if  by  press 
ing  a  button  somewhere  and  ringing  that  bell,  it 
sets  of!  a  bomb  somewhere?" 

"It  never  has,"  I  observed  dryly. 

But  however  absurd  Maggie's  logic  might  be, 
she  was  firm  in  her  major  premise.  Miss  Emily 
had  been  on  her  hands  and  knees  by  the  tele 
phone-stand,  and  had,  on  seeing  Maggie,  observed 
that  she  had  dropped  the  money  for  the  hack- 
man  out  of  her  glove. 

"Which  I  don't  believe.  Her  gloves  were  on 
the  stand.  If  you'll  come  back,  Miss  Agnes,  I'll 
show  you  how  she  was." 

We  made  rather  an  absurd  procession,  Maggie 
leading  with  the  saucer,  I  following,  and  the  cat, 
appearing  from  nowhere  as  usual,  bringing  up 
the  rear.  Maggie  placed  the  jelly  on  the  stand, 
and  dropped  on  her  hands  and  knees,  crawling 
under  the  stand,  a  confused  huddle  of  gingham 
apron,  jelly-stains,  and  suspicion. 

"She  had  her  head  down  like  this,"  she  said, 
in  rather  a  smothered  voice.  "I'm  her,  and  you're 
me.  And  I  says:  'If  it's  rolled  off  somewhere 


THE  CONFESSION  221 

I'll  find  it  next  time  I  sweep,  and  give  it  back 
to  you.'  Well,  what  d'you  think  of  that!  Here 
it  is!" 

My  attention  had  by  this  time  been  caught  by 
the  jelly,  now  unmistakably  solidifying  in  the 
center.  I  moved  to  the  kitchen  door  to  tell  Delia 
to  take  it  off  the  fire.  When  I  returned,  Maggie 
was  digging  under  the  telephone  battery-box  with 
a  hair-pin  and  muttering  to  herself. 

"Darnation!"  she  said,  "it's  gone  under!" 
"If  you  do  get  it,"  I  reminded  her,  "it  belongs 
to  Miss  Emily." 

There  is  a  curious  strain  of  cupidity  in  Maggie. 
I  have  never  been  able  to  understand  it.  With 
her  own  money  she  is  as  free  as  air.  But  let  her 
see  a  chance  for  illegitimate  gain,  of  finding  a 
penny  on  the  street,  of  not  paying  her  fare  on  the 
cars,  of  passing  a  bad  quarter,  and  she  is  filled 
with  an  unholy  joy.  And  so  today.  The  jelly 
was  forgotten.  Terror  was  gone.  All  that  ex 
isted  for  Maggie  was  a  twenty-five-cent  piece  un 
der  a  battery-box. 

Suddenly  she  wailed:  "It's  gone,  Miss  Agnes. 
It's  clear  under!" 

"Good  heavens,  Maggie !  What  difference  does 
it  make?" 


222  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

"W'you  mind  if  I  got  the  ice-pick  and  un 
screwed  the  box?" 

My  menage  is  always  notoriously  short  of 
tools. 

I  forbade  it  at  once,  and  ordered  her  back  to 
the  kitchen,  and  after  a  final  squint  along  the  car 
pet,  head  flat,  she  dragged  herself  out  and  to  her 
feet. 

"I'll  get  the  jelly  off,"  she  said,  "and  then 
maybe  a  hat  pin'll  reach  it.  I  can  see  the  edge 
of  it." 

A  loud  crack  from  the  kitchen  announced  that 
cook  had  forgotten  the  silver  spoon,  and  took 
Maggie  off  on  a  jump.  I  went  back  to  the  library 
and  "Bolivar  County,"  and,  I  must  confess,  to  a 
nap  in  my  chair. 

I  was  roused  by  the  feeling  that  some  one  was 
staring  at  me.  My  eyes  focused  first  on  the  ice 
pick,  then,  as  I  slowly  raised  them,  on  Maggie's 
face,  set  in  hard  and  uncompromising  lines. 

"I'd  thank  you  to  come  with  me,"  she  said 
stiffly. 

"Come  where?" 

"To  the  telephone." 

I  groaned  inwardly.  But,  because  submission 
to  Maggie's  tyranny  has  become  a  firm  habit 
with  me,  I  rose.  I  saw  then  that  she  held  a  dingy 
quarter  in  one  hand. 


THE  CONFESSION  223 

Without  a  word  she  turned  and  stalked  ahead 
of  me  into  the  hall.  It  is  curious,  looking  back 
and  remembering  that  she  had  then  no  knowl 
edge  of  the  significance  of  things,  to  remember 
how  hard  and  inexorable  her  back  was.  Viewed 
through  the  light  of  what  followed,  I  have  never 
been  able  to  visualize  Maggie  moving  down  the 
hall.  It  has  always  been  a  menacing  figure, 
rather  shadowy  than  real.  And  the  hall  itself 
takes  on  grotesque  proportions,  becomes  inordi 
nately  long,  an  infinity  of  hall,  fading  away  into 
time  and  distance. 

Yet  it  was  only  a  moment,  of  course,  until  I 
stood  by  the  telephone.  Maggie  had  been  at  work. 
The  wooden  box  which  covered  the  battery-jars 
had  been  removed,  and  lay^on  its  side.  The  bat 
tery-jars  were  uncovered,  giving  an  effect  of 
mystery  unveiled,  a  sort  of  shamelessness,  of  de 
stroyed  illusion. 

Maggie  pointed.  "There's  a  paper  under  one 
of  the  jars,"  she  said.  "I  haven't  touched  it,  but 
I  know  well  enough  what  it  is." 

I  have  not  questioned  Maggie  on  this  point,  but 
I  am  convinced  that  she  expected  to  find  a  sort 
of  final  summons,  of  death's  visiting-card,  for 
one  or  the  other  of  us. 

The  paper  was  there,  a  small  folded  scrap,  par 
tially  concealed  under  a  jar. 


224  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

"Them  prints  was  there,  too/'  Maggie  said, 
non-committally. 

The  box  had  accumulated  the  flucculent  float 
ing  particles  of  months,  possibly  years — lint  from 
the  hall  carpet  giving  it  a  reddish  tinge.  And  in 
this  light  and  evanescent  deposit,  fluttered  by  a 
breath,  fingers  had  moved,  searched,  I  am 
tempted  to  say  groped,  although  the  word  seems 
absurd  for  anything  so  small.  The  imprint  of 
Maggie's  coin  and  of  her  attempts  at  salvage 
were  at  the  edge  and  quite  distinct  from  the 
others. 

I  lifted  the  jar  and  picked  up  the  paper.  It 
was  folded  and  refolded  until  it  was  not  much 
larger  than  a  thumb-nail,  a  rather  stiff  paper 
crossed  with  faint  blue  lines.  I  am  not  sure  that 
I  would  have  opened  it — it  had  been  so  plainly 
in  hiding,  and  was  so  obviously  not  my  affair — 
had  not  Maggie  suddenly  gasped  and  implored 
me  not  to  look  at  it.  I  immediately  determined 
to  examine  it. 

Yet,  after  I  had  read  it  twice,  it  had  hardly 
made  an  impression  on  my  mind.  There  are  some 
things  so  incredible  that  the  brain  automatically 
rejects  them.  I  looked  at  the  paper.  I  read  it 
with  my  eyes.  But  I  did  not  grasp  it. 

It  was  not  note  paper.  It  was  apparently  torn 
from  a  tablet  of  glazed  and  ruled  paper — just 


THE  CONFESSION  225 

such  paper,  for  instance,  as  Maggie  soaks  in 
brandy  and  places  on  top  of  her  jelly  before  tying 
it  up.  It  had  been  raggedly  torn.  The  scrap 
was  the  full  width  of  the  sheet,  but  only  three 
inches  or  so  deep.  It  was  undated,  and  this  is 
what  it  said: 

"To  Whom  it  may  concern :  On  the  3Oth  day 
of  May,  1911,  I  killed  a  woman  (here)  in  this 
house.  I  hope  you  will  not  find  this  until  I  am 

dead. 

(Signed)  EMILY  BENTON." 

Maggie  had  read  the  confession  over  my  shoul 
der,  and  I  felt  her  body  grow  rigid.  As  for  my 
self,  my  first  sensation  \vas  one  of  acute  discom 
fort — that  we  should  have  exposed  the  confession 
to  the  light  of  day.  Neither  of  us,  I  am  sure,  had 
really  grasped  it.  Maggie  put  a  trembling  hand 
on  my  arm. 

"The  brass  of  her,"  she  said,  in  a  thin,  terri 
fied  voice.  "And  sitting  in  church  like  the  rest 
of  us.  Oh,  my  God,  Miss  Agnes,  put  it  back !" 

I  whirled  on  her,  in  a  fury  that  was  only  an 
outlet  for  my  own  shock. 

"Once  for  all,  Maggie,"  I  said,  "I'll  ask  you 
to  wait  until  you  are  spoken  to.  And  if  I  hear 
that  you  have  so  much  as  mentioned  this — piece 
of  paper,  out  you  go  and  never  come  back." 


226 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

But  she  was  beyond  apprehension.  She  was 
literal,  too.  She  saw,  not  Miss  Emily  unbeliev 
ably  associated  with  a  crime,  but  the  crime  itself. 

"Who  d'you  suppose  it  was,  Miss  Agnes?" 

"I  don't  believe  it  at  all.  §ome  one  has  placed 
it  there  to  hurt  Miss  Emily." 

"It's  her  writing/'  said  Maggie  doggedly. 

After  a  time  I  got  rid  of  her,  and  sat  down  to 
think  in  the  library.  Rather  I  sat  down  to  rea 
son  with  myself. 

For  every  atom  of  my  brain  was  clamoring  that 
this  thing  was  true,  that  my  little  Miss  Emily, 
exquisite  and  fine  as  she  was,  had  done  the  thing 
she  claimed  to  have  done.  It  was  her  own  writ 
ing,  thin,  faintly  shaded,  as  neat  and  as  erect  as 
herself.  But  even  that  I  would  not  accept,  until 
I  had  compared  it  with  such  bits  of  hers  as  I 
possessed,  the  note  begging  me  to  take  the  house, 
the  inscription  on  the  fly-leaf  of  "Fifty  Years 
in  Bolivar  County." 

And  here  was  something  I  could  not  quite  un 
derstand.  The  writing  was  all  of  the  same  or 
der,  but  while  the  confession  and  the  inscription 
in  the  book  were  similar,  letter  for  letter,  in  the 
note  to  me  there  were  differences,  a  change  in  the 
"t"  in  Benton,  a  fuller  and  blacker  stroke,  a  va 
riation  in  the  terminals  of  the  letters — -it  is  hard 
to  particularize. 


THE  CONFESSION  227 

I  spent  the  remainder  of  the  day  in  the  library, 
going  out  for  dinner,  of  course,  but  returning  to 
my  refuge  again  immediately  after.  Only  in  the 
library  am  I  safe  from  Maggie.  By  virtue  of 
her  responsibility  for  my  wardrobe,  she  virtu 
ally  shares  my  bedroom,  but  her  respect  for  books 
she  never  reads  makes  her  regard  a  library  as  at 
least  semi-holy  ground.  She  dusts  books  with 
more  caution  than  china,  and  her  respect  for  a 
family  Bible  is  greater  than  her  respect  for  me. 

I  spent  the  evening  there,  Miss  Emily's  cat  on 
the  divan,  and  the  mysterious  confession  lying 
before  me  under  the  lamp.  At  night  the  varia 
tion  between  it  and  her  note  to  me  concerning 
the  house  seemed  more  pronounced.  The  note 
looked  more  like  a  clumsy  imitation  of  Miss 
Emily's  own  hand.  Or — perhaps  this  is  nearer 
— as  if,  after  writing  in  a  certain  way  for  sixty 
years,  she  had  tried  to  change  her  style. 

All  my  logic  ended  in  one  conclusion.  She 
must  have  known  the  confession  was  there. 
Therefore  the  chances  were  that  she  had  placed 
it  there.  But  it  was  not  so  simple  as  that. 

Both  crime  and  confession  indicated  a  degree 
of  impulse  that  Miss  Emily  did  not  possess.  I 
have  entirely  failed  with  my  picture  of  Miss 
Emily  if  the  word  violence  can  be  associated  with 
her  in  any  way.  Miss  Emily  was  a  temple,  clean- 


228  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

swept,  cold,  and  empty.  She  never  acted  on  im 
pulse.  Every  action,  almost  every  word,  seemed 
the  result  of  thought  and  deliberation. 

Yet,  if  I  could  believe  my  eyes,  five  years  be 
fore  she  had  killed  a  woman  in  this  very  house. 
Possibly  in  the  very  room  in  which  I  was  then 
sitting. 

I  find,  on  looking  back,  that  the  terror  must 
have  left  me  that  day.  It  had,  for  so  many  weeks, 
been  so  much  a  part  of  my  daily  life  that  I  would 
have  missed  it  had  it  not  been  for  this  new  and 
engrossing  interest.  I  remember  that  the  long 
French  windows  of  the  library  reflected  the  room 
— like  mirrors  against  the  darkness  outside,  and 
that  once  I  thought  I  saw  a  shadowy  movement 
in  one  of  them,  as  though  a  figure  moved  behind 
me.  But  when  I  turned  sharply  there  was  no  one 
there,  and  Maggie  proved  to  be,  as  usual  after 
nine  o'clock,  shut  away  upstairs. 

I  was  not  terrified.  And  indeed  the  fear  never 
returned.  In  all  the  course  of  my  investigations, 
I  was  never  again  a  victim  of  the  unreasoning 
fright  of  those  earlier  days. 

My  difficulty  was  that  I  was  asked  to  believe 
the  unbelievable.  It  was  impossible  to  recon 
struct  in  that  quiet  house  a  scene  of  violence.  It 
was  equally  impossible,  in  view,  for  instance,  of 
that  calm  and  filial  inscription  in  the  history  of 


THE  CONFESSION  229 

Bolivar  County,  to  connect  Miss  Emily  with  it. 
She  had  killed  a  woman,  forsooth !  Miss  Emily, 
of  the  baby  afghans,  of  the  weary  peddler,  of 
that  quiet  seat  in  the  church. 

Yet  I  knew  now  that  Miss  Emily  knew  of  the 
confession;  knew,  at  least,  of  something  con 
cealed  in  that  corner  of  the  rear  hall  which  housed 
the  telephone.  Had  she  by  chance  an  enemy  who 
would  have  done  this  thing?  But  to  suspect  Miss 
Emily  of  an  enemy  was  as  absurd  as  to  suspect 
her  of  a  crime. 

I  was  completely  at  a  loss  when  I  put  out  the 
lights  and  prepared  to  close  the  house.  As  I 
glanced  back  along  the  hall,  I  could  not  help  won 
dering  if  the  telephone,  having  given  up  its 
secret,  would  continue  its  nocturnal  alarms.  As 
I  stood  there,  I  heard  the  low  growl  of  thunder 
and  the  patter  of  rain  against  the  windows. 
Partly  out  of  loneliness,  partly  out  of  bravado,  I 
went  back  to  the  telephone  and  tried  to  call  Willie. 
But  the  line  was  out  of  order. 

I  slept  badly.  Shortly  after  I  returned  I  heard 
a  door  slamming  repeatedly,  which  I  knew  meant 
an  open  window  somewhere.  I  got  up  and  went 
into  the  hall.  There  was  a  cold  air  coming  from 
somewhere  below.  But  as  I  stood  there  it  ceased. 
The  door  above  stopped  slamming,  and  silence 
reigned  again. 


230  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

Maggie  roused  me  early.  The  morning  sun 
light  was  just  creeping  into  the  room,  and  the  air 
was  still  cool  with  the  night  and  fresh-washed  by 
the  storm. 

"Miss  Agnes/'  she  demanded,  standing  over 
me,  "did  you  let  the  cat  out  last  night?" 

"I  brought  him  in  before  I  went  to  bed." 

"Humph!"  said  Maggie.  "And  did  I  or  did  I 
not  wash  the  doorstep  yesterday?" 

"You  ought  to  know.    You  said  you  did." 

"Miss  Agnes,"  Maggie  said,  "that  woman  was 
in  this  house  last  night.  You  can  see  her  foot 
prints  as  plain  as  day  on  the  doorstep.  And 
what's  more,  she  stole  the  cat  and  let  out  your 
mother's  Paisley  shawl." 

Which  statements,  corrected,  proved  to  be  true. 
My  old  Paisley  shawl  was  gone  from  the  hall- 
rack,  and  unquestionably  the  cat  had  been  on  the 
back  doorstep  that  morning  along  with  the  milk 
bottles.  Moreover,  one  of  my  fresh  candles  had 
been  lighted,  but  had  burned  for  only  a  moment 
or  two. 

That  day  I  had  a  second  visit  from  young  Mar 
tin  Sprague.  The  telephone  was  in  working  or 
der  again,  having  unaccountably  recovered,  and 
I  was  using  it  when  he  came.  He  watched  me 
quizzically  from  a  position  by  the  newelpost,  as  I 
rang  off. 


THE  CONFESSION  231 

"I  was  calling  Miss  Emily  Benton,"  I  ex- 
plajned,  "but  she  is  ill." 

"Still  troubled  with  telephobia?" 

"I  have  other  things  to  worry  me,  Martin/'  I 
said  gravely,  and  let  him  into  the  library. 

There  I  made  a  clean  breast  of  everything  I 
omitted  nothing.  The  fear,  the  strange  ringing 
of  the  telephone  bell;  the  gasping  breathing  over 
it  the  night  before ;  Miss  Emily's  visit  to  it.  And, 
at  last,  the  discovery. 

He  took  the  paper  when  I  offered  it  to  him, 
and  examined  it  carefully  by  a  window.  Then 
he  stood  looking  out  and  whistling  reflectively. 
At  last  he  turned  back  to  the  room. 

"It's  an  unusual  story,"  he  said.  "But  if  you'll 
give  me  a  little  time  I'll  explain  it  to  you.  In 
the  first  place,  let  go  of  the  material  things  for  a 
moment,  and  let's  deal  with  minds  and  emotions. 
You're  a  sensitive  person,  Miss  Agnes.  You 
catch  a  lot  of  impressions  that  pass  most  people 
by.  And,  first  of  all,  you've  been  catching  fright 
from  two  sources." 

"Two  sources?" 

"Two.  Maggie  is  one.  She  hates  the  country. 
She  is  afraid  of  old  houses.  And  she  sees  in  this 
house  only  the  ghosts  of  people  who  have  died 
here/' 


232  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

"I  pay  no  attention  to  Maggie's  fears." 

"You  only  think  that.  But  to  go  further — you 
have  been  receiving  waves  of  apprehension  from 
another  source — from  the  little  lady,  Miss 
Emily." 

"Then  you  think " 

"Hold  on,"  he  said  smiling.  "I  think  she  wrote 
that  confession.  Yes.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  I'm 
quite  sure  she  did.  And  she  has  established  a 
system  of  espionage  on  you  by  means  of  the  tele 
phone.  If  you  had  discovered  the  confession,  she 
knew  that  there  would  be  a  change  in  your  voice, 
in  your  manner.  If  you  answered  very  quickly, 
as  though  you  had  been  near  the  instrument,  per 
haps  in  the  very  act  of  discovering  the  paper — 
don't  you  get  it  ?  And  can't  you  see  how  her  ter 
ror  affected  you  even  over  the  wire?  Don't  you 
think  that,  if  thought  can  travel  untold  distances, 
fear  can?  Of  course." 

"But,  Martin!"  I  exclaimed.  "Little  Miss 
Emily  a  murderess." 

He  threw  up  his  hands. 

"Certainly  not,"  he  said.  "You're  a  shrewd 
woman,  Miss  Agnes.  Do  you  know  that  a  cer 
tain  type  of  woman  frequently  confesses  to  a 
crime  she  never  committed,  or  had  any  chance  of 
committing?  Look  at  the  police  records — con 
fessions  of  women  as  to  crimes  they  could  only 


THE  CONFESSION 233 

have  heard  of  through  the  newspapers!  I  would 
like  to  wager  that  if  we  had  the  newspapers  of 
that  date  that  came  into  this  house,  we  would  find 
a  particularly  atrocious  and  mysterious  murder 
being  featured — the  murder  of  a  woman." 

"You  do  not  know  her,"  I  maintained  doggedly. 
And  drew,  as  best  I  could,  a  sketch  of  Miss 
Emily,  while  he  listened  attentively. 

"A  pure  neurasthenic  type,"  was  his  com 
ment.  "Older  than  usual,  but  that  is  accountable 
by  the  sheltered  life  she  has  led.  The  little  Miss 
Emily  is  still  at  heart  a  girl.  And  a  hysterical 
girl." 

"She  has  had  enough  trouble  to  develop  her." 

"Trouble!  Has  she  ever  had  a  genuine  emo 
tion?  Look  at  this  house.  She  nursed  an  old 
father  in  it,  a  bedridden  mother,  a  paretic 
brother,  when  she  should  have  been  having  chil 
dren.  Don't  you  see  it,  Miss  Agnes?  All  her 
emotions  have  had  to  be  mental.  Failing  them 
outside,  she  provided  them  for  herself.  This" — 
he  tapped  the  paper  in  his  hand — "this  is  one." 

I  had  heard  of  people  confessing  to  crimes  the> 
had  never  committed,  and  at  the  time  Martin 
Sprague  at  least  partly  convinced  me.  He  was 
so  sure  of  himself.  And  when,  that  afternoon, 
he  telephoned  me  from  the  city  to  say  that  he 


234  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

was  mailing  out  some  old  newspapers,  I  knew 
quite  well  what  he  had  found. 

"I've  thought  of  something  else,  Miss  Agnes/' 
he  said.  "If  you'll  look  it  up  you  will  probably 
find  that  the  little  lady  had  had  either  a  shock 
sometime  before  that,  or  a  long  pull  of  nursing. 
Something,  anyhow,  to  set  her  nervous  system 
to  going  in  the  wrong  direction." 

Late  that  afternoon,  as  it  happened,  I  was  en 
abled  to  learn  something  of  this  from  a  visiting 
neighbor,  and  once  again  I  was  forced  to  ac 
knowledge  that  he  might  be  right. 

The  neighbors  had  not  been  overcordial.  I  had 
gathered,  from  the  first,  the  impression  that  the 
members  of  the  Reverend  Samuel  Thaddeus  Ben- 
ton's  congregation  did  not  fancy  an  interloper 
among  the  sacred  relics  of  the  historian  of  Boli 
var  County.  And  I  had  a  corroboration  of  that 
impression  from  my  visitor  of  that  afternoon,  a 
Mrs.  Graves. 

"I've  been  slow  in  coming,  Miss  Blakiston," 
she  said,  seating  herself  primly.  "I  don't  sup 
pose  you  can  understand,  but  this  has  always  been 
the  Benton  place,  and  it  seems  strange  to  us  to 
see  new  faces  here." 

I  replied,  with  some  asperity,  that  I  Had  not 
been  anxious  to  take  the  house,  but  that  Miss 


THE  CONFESSION 235 

Emily  had  been  so  insistent  that  I  had  finally 
done  so. 

It  seemed  to  me  that  she  flashed  a  quick  glance 
at  me. 

"She  is  quite  the  most  loved  person  in  the  val 
ley/1  she  said.  "And  she  loves  the  place.  It  is — 
I  cannot  imagine  why  she  rented  the  house.  She 
is  far  from  comfortable  where  she  is." 

After  a  time  I  gathered  that  she  suspected 
financial  stringency  as  the  cause,  and  I  tried  to 
set  her  mind  at  rest. 

"It  cannot  be  money,"  I  said.  "The  rent  is 
absurdly  low.  The  agent  wished  her  to  ask  more, 
but  she  refused." 

She  sat  silent  for  a  time,  pulling  at  the  fingers 
of  her  white  silk  gloves.  And  when  she  spoke 
again  it  was  of  the  garden.  But  before  she  left 
she  returned  to  Miss  Emily. 

"She  has  had  a  hard  life,  in  a  way,"  she  said. 
"It  is  only  five  years  since  she  buried  her  brother, 
and  her  father  not  long  before  that.  She  has 
broken  a  great  deal  since  then.  Not  that  the 
brother " 

"I  understand  he  was  a  great  care." 

Mrs.  Graves  looked  about  the  room,  its  shelves 
piled  high  with  the  ecclesiastical  library  of  the 
late  clergyman. 

"It  was  not  only  that,"  she  said.     "When  he 


236 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

was — all  right,  he  was  an  atheist.  Imagine,  in 
this  house !  He  had  the  most  terrible  books,  Miss 
Blakiston.  And,  of  course,  when  a  man  believes 
there  is  no  hereafter,  he  is  apt  to  lead  a  wicked 
life.  There  is  nothing  to  hold  him  back." 

Her  mind  was  on  Miss  Emily  and  her  prob 
lems.  She  moved  abstractedly  toward  the  door. 

"In  this  very  hall/'  she  said,  "I  helped  Miss 
Emily  to  pack  all  his  books  into  a  box,  and  we  sent 
for  Mr.  Staley — the  hackman  at  the  station,  you 
know — and  he  dumped  the  whole  thing  into  the 
river.  We  went  away  with  him,  and  how  she 
cheered  up  when  it  was  done!" 

Martin  Sprague's  newspapers  arrived  the  next 
morning.  They  bore  a  date  of  two  days  before 
the  date  of  the  confession,  and  contained,  rather 
triumphantly  outlined  in  blue  pencil,  full  details 
of  the  murder  of  a  young  woman  by  some  un 
known  assassin.  It  had  been  a  grisly  crime,  and 
the  paper  was  filled  with  details  of  a  most  sensa 
tional  sort. 

Had  I  been  asked,  I  would  have  said  that  Miss 
Emily's  clear,  slightly  upturned  eyes  had  never 
glanced  beyond  the  merest  headlines  of  such  jour 
nalistic  reports.  But  in  a  letter  Martin  Sprague 
set  forth  a  precisely  opposite  view. 

"You  will  probably  find,"  he  wrote,  "that  the 
little  lady  is  pretty  well  fed  up  on  such  stuff.  The 


THE  CONFESSION  237 

calmer  and  more  placid  the  daily  life,  the  more 
apt  is  the  secret  inner  one,  in  such  a  circum 
scribed  existence,  to  be  a  thriller!  You  might 
look  over  the  books  in  the  house.  There  is  a  his 
toric  case  where  a  young  girl  swore  she  had 
tossed  her  little  brother  to  a  den  of  lions  (al 
though  there  were  no  lions  near,  and  little  brother 
was  subsequently  found  asleep  in  the  attic)  after 
reading  Fox's  Book  of  Martyrs.  Probably  the 
old  gentleman  has  this  joke  book  in  his  library." 

I  put  down  his  letter  and  glanced  around  the 
room.  Was  he  right,  after  all?  Did  women,  ra 
tional,  truthful,  devout  women,  ever  act  in  this 
strange  manner?  And  if  it  was  true,  was  it  not 
in  its  own  way  as  mysterious  as  everything  else? 

I  was,  for  a  time  that  day,  strongly  influenced 
by  Martin  Sprague's  conviction.  It  was,  for  one 
thing,  easier  to  believe  than  that  Emily  Benton 
had  committed  a  crime.  And,  as  if  to  lend  color 
to  his  assertion,  the  sunlight,  falling  onto  the 
dreary  bookshelves,  picked  out  and  illuminated 
dull  gilt  letters  on  the  brown  back  of  a  volume. 
It  was  Fox's  Book  of  Martyrs ! 

If  I  may  analyze  my  sensations  at  that  time, 
they  divided  themselves  into  three  parts.  The 
first  was  fear.  That  seems  to  have  given  away  to 
curiosity,  and  that  at  a  later  period,  to  an  intense 
anxiety.  Of  the  three,  I  have  no  excuse  for  the 


238 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

second,  save  the  one  I  gave  myself  at  the  time — 
that  Miss  Emily  could  not  possibly  have  done  the 
thing  she  claimed  to  have  done,  and  that  I  must 
prove  her  innocence  to  myself. 

With  regard  to  Martin  Sprague's  theory,  I  was 
divided.  I  wanted  him  to  be  right.  I  wanted 
him  to  be  wrong.  No  picture  I  could  visualize  of 
little  old  Miss  Emily  conceivably  fitted  the  type 
he  had  drawn.  On  the  other  hand,  nothing  about 
her  could  possibly  confirm  the  confession  as  an 
actual  one. 

The  scrap  of  paper  became,  for  the  time,  my 
universe.  Did  I  close  my  eyes,,  I  saw  it  side  by 
side  with  the  inscription  in  "Fifty  years  of  my 
Bolivar  County/'  and  letter  for  letter,  in  the  same 
hand.  Did  the  sun  shine,  I  had  it  in  the  light, 
examining  it,  reading  it.  To  such  a  point  did  it 
obsess  me  that  I  refused  to  allow  Maggie  to  use  a 
tablet  of  glazed  paper  she  had  found  in  the 
kitchen  table  drawer  to  tie  up  the  jelly-glasses.  It 
seemed,  somehow,  horrible  to  me. 

At  that  time  I  had  no  thought  of  going  back 
five  years  and  trying  to  trace  the  accuracy  or 
falsehood  of  the  confession.  I  should  not  have 
known  how  to  go  about  it.  Had  such  a  crime  been 
committed,  how  to  discover  it  at  this  late  day? 
Whom  in  all  her  sheltered  life,  could  Miss  Emily 


THE  CONFESSION  239 

have  murdered?  In  her  small  world,  who  could 
have  fallen  out  and  left  no  sign? 

It  was  impossible,  and  I  knew  it.    And  yet 

Miss  Emily  was  ill.  The  news  came  through 
the  grocery  boy,  who  came  out  every  day  on  a 
bicycle,  and  teased  the  cat  and  carried  away  all 
the  pears  as  fast  as  they  ripened.  Maggie  brought 
me  the  information  at  luncheon. 

"She's  sick,"  she  said. 

There  was  only  one  person  in  both  our  minds 
those  days. 

"Do  you  mean  really  ill,  or  only " 

"The  boy  says  she's  breaking  up.  If  you  ask 
me,  she  caught  cold  the  night  she  broke  in  here 
and  took  your  Paisley  shawl.  And  if  you  ask 
my  advice,  Miss  Agnes,  you'll  get  it  back  again 
before  the  heirs  step  in  and  claim  it.  They  don't 
make  them  shawls  nowadays,  and  she's  as  like 
as  not  to  will  it  to  somebody  if  you  don't  go  after 
it." 

"Maggie,"  I  said  quietly,  "how  do  you  know 
she  has  that  shawl  ?" 

"How  did  I  know  that  paper  was  in  the  tele 
phone-box?"  she  countered. 

And,  indeed,  by  that  time  Maggie  had  con 
vinced  herself  that  she  had  known  all  along  there 
was  something  in  the  telephone  battery-box. 

"I've  a  sort  of  second  siefht,  Miss  Agnes,"  she 


240 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

added.  And,  with  a  shrewdness  I  found  later 
was  partially  correct :  "She  was  snooping  around 
to  see  if  you'd  found  that  paper,  and  it  came  on 
to  rain;  so  she  took  the  shawl.  I  should  say/' 
said  Maggie,  lowering  her  voice,  "that  as  like 
as  not  she's  been  in  this  house  every  night  since 


we  came." 


Late  that  afternoon  I  cut  some  of  the  roses 
from  the  arch  for  Miss  Emily,  and  wrapping 
them  against  the  sun,  carried  them  to  the  village. 
At  the  last  I  hesitated.  It  was  so  much  like  pry^ 
ing.  I  turned  aside  at  the  church  intending  to 
leave  them  there  for  the  altar.  But  I  could  find 
no  one  in  the  parish  house,  and  no  vessel  to  hold 
them. 

It  was  late  afternoon.  I  opened  a  door  and 
stepped  into  the  old  church.  I  knelt  for  a  mo 
ment,  and  then  sat  back  and  surveyed  the  quiet 
building.  It  occurred  to  me  that  here  one  could 
obtain  a  real  conception  of  the  Benton  family, 
and  of  Miss  Emily.  The  church  had  been  the 
realest  thing  in  their  lives.  It  had  dominated 
them,  obsessed  them.  When  the  Reverend  Sam 
uel  Thaddeus  died,  they  had  built  him,  not  a 
monument,  but  a  parish  house.  When  Carlo 
Benton  died  (however  did  such  an  ungodly  name 
come  to  belong  to  a  Benton?)  Miss  Emily  ac- 


THE  CONFESSION  241 

cording  to  the  story,  had  done  without   fresh 
mourning  and  built  him  a  window. 

I  looked  at  the  window.  It  was  extremely  ugly, 
and  very  devout.  And  under  it  was  the  dead 
man's  name  and  two  dates,  1860  and  1911. 

So  Carlo  Benton  had  died  the  year  Miss  Emily 
claimed  to  have  done  a  murder !  Another  proof, 
I  reflected  that  Martin  Sprague  would  say.  He 
had  been  on  her  hands  for  a  long  time,  both  well 
and  ill.  Small  wonder  if  little  Miss  Emily  had 
fallen  to  imagining  things,  or  to  confessing  them. 

I  looked  at  the  memorial  window  once  more, 
and  I  could  almost  visualize  her  gathering  up  the 
dead  man's  hateful  books,  and  getting  them  as 
quickly  as  possible  out  of  the  house.  Quite  pos 
sibly  there  were  unmentionable  volumes  among 
them — de  Maupassant,  perhaps  Boccaccio.  I  had 
a  distinct  picture,  too,  of  Mrs.  Graves,  lips  primly 
set,  assisting  her  \vith  hands  that  fairly  itched 
with  the  righteousness  of  her  actions. 

I  still  held  the  roses,  and  as  I  left  the  church 
I  decided  to  lay  them  on  some  grave  in  the  church 
yard.  I  thought  it  quite  likely  that  roses  from 
the  same  arch  had  been  frequently  used  for  that 
purpose.  Some  very  young  grave,  I  said  to  my 
self,  and  found  one  soon  enough,  a  bit  of  a  rec 
tangle  of  fresh  earth,  and  a  jarful  of  pansies  on 


242  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

it.  It  lay  in  the  shadow  of  the  Benton  mauso 
leum. 

That  was  how  I  found  that  Carlo  Benton  had 
died  on  the  27th  of  May,  1911. 

I  cannot  claim  that  the  fact  at  the  time  had  any 
significance  for  me,  or  that  I  saw  in  it  any 
thing  more  than  another  verification  of  Martin 
Sprague's  solution.  But  it  enabled  me  to  recon 
struct  the  Benton  household  at  the  date  that  had 
grown  so  significant.  The  3Oth  would  have  prob 
ably  been  the  day  after  the  funeral.  Perhaps  the 
nurse  was  still  there.  He  had  had  a  nurse  for 
months,  according  to  Mrs.  Graves.  And  there 
would  have  been  the  airing  that  follows  long  ill 
ness  and  death,  the  opened  windows,  the  packing 
up  or  giving  away  of  clothing,  the  pauses  and 
silences,  the  sense  of  strangeness  and  quiet,  the 
lowered  voices.  And  there  would  have  been,  too, 
that  remorseless  jpacking  for  destruction  of  the 
dead  atheist's  books. 

And  some  time,  during  that  day  or  the  night 
that  followed,  little  Miss  Emily  claimed  to  have 
committed  her  crime. 

I  went  home  thoughtfully.  At  the  gate  I  turned 
and  looked  back.  The  Benton  Mausoleum  was 
warm  in  the  sunset,  and  the  rose  sprays  lay,  like 
outstretched  arms,  across  the  tiny  grave. 


THE  CONFESSION  243 

Maggie  is  amazingly  efficient.  I  am  efficient 
myself,  I  trust,  but  I  modify  it  with  intelligence. 
It  is  not  to  me  a  vital  matter,  for  instance,  if  three 
dozen  glasses  of  jelly  sit  on  a  kitchen  table  a  day 
or  two  after  they  are  prepared  for  retirement  to 
the  fruit  cellar.  I  rather  like  to  see  them,  mar 
shaled  in  their  neat  rows,  capped  with  sealing- 
wax  and  paper,  and  armed  with  labels.  But  Mag 
gie  has  neither  sentiment  nor  imagination.  Jelly 
to  her  is  an  institution,  not  an  inspiration.  It  is 
subject  to  certain  rules  and  rites,  of  which  not 
the  least  is  the  formal  interment  in  the  fruit 
closet. 

Therefore,  after  much  protesting  that  night,  1 
agreed  to  visit  the  fruit  cellar,  and  select  a  spot 
for  the  temporary  entombing  of  thirty-six  jelly 
tumblers,  which  would  have  been  thirty-seven 
had  Delia  known  the  efficacy  of  a  silver  spoon.  I 
can  recall  vividly  the  mental  shift  from  the  con 
fession  to  that  domestic  excursion,  my  own  impa 
tience,  Maggie's  grim  determination,  and  the  cu 
rious  denouement  of  that  visit. 


in 

I  had  the  very  slightest  acquaintance  with  the 
basement  of  the  Benton  house.  I  knew  it  was 
dry  and  orderly,  and  with  that  my  interest  in 


244  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

it  ceased.  It  was  not  cemented,  but  its  hard 
clay  floor  was  almost  as  solid  as  macadam.  In 
one  end  was  built  a  high  potato-bin.  In  an 
other  corner  two  or  three  old  pews  from  the 
church,  evidently  long  discarded  and  showing 
weather-stains,  as  though  they  had  once  served 
as  garden  benches,  were  up-ended  against  the 
whitewashed  wall.  The  fruit-closet,  built  in  of 
lumber,  occupied  one  entire  end,  and  was  virtual 
ly  a  room,  with  a  door  and  no  windows. 

Maggie  had,  she  said,  found  it  locked  and  had 
had  an  itinerant  locksmith  fit  a  key  to  it. 

"It's  all  scrubbed  and  ready,"  she  said.  "I 
found  that  preserved  melon-rind  you  had  for 
lunch  in  a  corner.  'Twouldn't  of  kept  much 
longer,  so  I  took  it  up  and  opened  it.  She's  prob 
ably  got  all  sorts  of  stuff  spoiling  in  the  locked 
part.  Some  folks're  like  that." 

Most  of  the  shelves  were  open,  but  now,  hold 
ing  the  lamp  high,  I  saw  that  a  closet  with  a  door 
occupied  one  end.  The  door  was  padlocked.  At 
the  time  I  was  interested,  but  I  was,  as  I  remem 
ber,  much  more  occupied  with  Maggie's  sense  of 
meum  and  tuum,  which  I  considered  deficient, 
and  of  a  small  lecture  on  other  people's  melon- 
rinds,  which  I  delivered  as  she  sullenly  put  away 
the  jelly. 

But  that  night,  after  I  had  gone  to  bed,  the 


THE  CONFESSION  245 

memory  of  that  padlock  became  strangely  in 
sistent.  There  was  nothing  psychic  about  the 
feeling  I  had.  It  was  perfectly  obvious  and 
simple.  The  house  held,  or  had  held,  a  secret. 
Yet  it  was,  above  stairs,  as  open  as  the  day. 
There  was  no  corner  into  which  I  might  not  peer, 
except — Why  was  that  portion  of  the  fruit-closet 
locked? 

At  two  o'clock,  finding  myself  unable  to  sleep, 
I  got  up  and  put  on  my  dressing-gown  and  slip 
pers.  I  had  refused  to  repeat  the  experiment  of 
being  locked  in.  Then,  with  a  candle  and  a  box 
of  matches,  I  went  downstairs.  I  had,  as  I  have 
said,  no  longer  any  terror  of  the  lower  floor.  The 
cat  lay  as  usual  on  the  table  in  the  back  hall.  I 
saw  his  eyes  watching  me  with  their  curious  un 
blinking  stare,  as  intelligent  as  two  brass  but 
tons.  He  rose  as  my  light  approached,  and  I 
made  a  bed  for  him  of  a  cushion  from  a  chair, 
failing  my  Paisley  shawl. 

It  was  after  that  that  I  had  the  curious  sense 
of  being  led.  It  was  as  though  I  knew  that  some 
thing  awaited  my  discovery,  and  that  my  sole 
volition  was  whether  I  should  make  that  discov 
ery  or  not.  It  was  there,  waiting. 

I  have  no  explanation  for  this.  And  it  is  quite 
possible  that  I  might  have  had  it,  to  find  at  the 


246 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

end  nothing  more  significant  than  root-beer,  for 
instance,  or  bulbs  for  the  winter  garden. 

And  indeed,  at  first  sight,  what  awaited  me  in 
the  locked  closet  amounted  to  anti-climax.  For 
when  I  had  broken  the  rusty  padlock  open  with  a 
hatchet,  and  had  opened  doors  with  nervous  fin 
gers,  nothing  more  startling  appeared  than  a 
number  of  books.  The  shelves  were  piled  high 
with  them,  a  motley  crew  of  all  colors,  but  dark 
shades  predominating. 

I  went  back  to  bed,  sheepishly  enough,  and 
wrapped  my  chilled  feet  in  an  extra  blanket. 
Maggie  came  to  the  door  about  the  time  I  was 
dozing  off  and  said  she  had  heard  'hammering 
downstairs  in  the  cellar  some  time  ago,  but  she 
had  refused  to  waken  me  until  the  burglars  had 
gone. 

"If  it  was  burglars/'  she  added,  "you're  that 
up-and-ready,  Miss  Agnes,  that  I  knew  if  I 
waked  you  you'd  be  downstairs  after  them. 
What's  a  bit  of  silver  to  a  human  life?" 

I  got  her  away  at  last,  and  she  went,  muttering 
something  about  digging  up  the  cellar  floor  and 
finding  an  uneasy  spirit.  Then  I  fell  asleep. 

I  had  taken  cold  that  night,  and  the  following 
morning  I  spent  in  bed.  At  noon  Maggie  came 
upstairs,  holding  at  arm's  length  a  book.  She 


THE  CONFESSION  247 

kept  her  face  averted,  and  gave  me  a  slanting  and 
outraged  glance. 

"This  is  a  nice  place  we've  come  to,"  she  said, 
acidly.  "Murder  in  the  telephone  and  anti-Christ 
in  the  fruit  cellar !" 

"Why,  Maggie,"  I  expostulated. 

"If  these  books  stay,  I  go,  and  that's  flat,  Miss 
Agnes,"  was  her  ipse  dixit.  She  dropped  the  book 
on  the  bed  and  stalked  out,  pausing  at  the  door 
only  to  throw  back,  "If  this  is  a  clergyman's 
house,  I  guess  I'd  be  better  out  of  the  church." 

I  took  up  the  book.  It  was  well-worn,  and  in 
the  front,  in  a  heavy  masculine  hand,  the  owner 
had  written  his  name — written  it  large,  a  bit  de 
fiantly,  perhaps.  It  had  taken  both  courage  and 
conviction  to  bring  such  a  book  into  that  devout 
household. 

I  am  not  quick,  mentally,  especially  when  it 
comes  to  logical  thought.  I  daresay  I  am  in 
tuitive  rather  than  logical.  It  was  not  by  any 
process  of  reasoning  at  all,  I  fancy,  that  it  sud 
denly  seemed  strange  that  there  should  be  books 
locked  away  in  the  cellar.  Yet  it  was  strange. 
For  that  had  been  a  bookish  household.  Books 
were  its  stock  in  trade,  one  may  say.  Such  as 
I  had  borrowed  from  the  library  had  been  care 
fully  tended.  Torn  leaves  were  neatly  repaired. 
The  reference  books  were  alphabetically  ar- 


248 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

ranged.  And,  looking  back  on  my  visit  to  the 
cellar,  I  recalled  now  as  inconsistent  the  disorder 
of  those  basement  shelves. 

I  did  not  reach  the  truth  until,  that  afternoon, 
I  made  a  second  visit  to  the  cellar.  Mrs.  Graves 
had  been  mistaken.  If  not  all  Carlo  Benton's 
proscribed  books  were  hidden  there,  at  least  a 
large  portion  of  his  library  was  piled,  in  some 
thing  like  confusion,  on  the  shelves.  Yet  she 
maintained  that  they  had  searched  the  house,  and 
she  herself  had  been  present  when  the  books  were 
packed  and  taken  away  to  the  river. 

That  afternoon  I  returned  Mrs.  Graves's  visit. 
She  was  at  home,  and  in  a  sort  of  flurried  neat 
ness  that  convinced  me  she  had  seen  me  from 
far  up  the  road.  That  conviction  was  increased 
by  the  amazing  promptness  with  which  a  tea- 
tray  followed  my  entrance.  I  had  given  her  tea 
the  day  she  came  to  see  me,  and  she  was  not  to 
be  outdone.  Indeed,  I  somehow  gained  the  im 
pression  that  tray  and  teapot,  and  even  little 
cakes,  had  been  waiting,  day  by  day,  for  my  an 
ticipated  visit. 

It  was  not  hard  to  set  her  talking  of  Carlo  Ben- 
ton  and  his  wickedness.  She  rose  to  the  bait  like 
a  hungry  fish.  Yet  I  gathered  that,  beyond  his 
religious  views  or  lack  of  them,  she  knew  nothing. 
But  on  the  matter  of  the  books  she  was  firm. 


THE  CONFESSION  249 

"After  the  box  was  ready/*  she  said,  "we  went 
to  every  room  and  searched  it.  Miss  Emily  was 
set  on  clearing  out  every  trace.  At  the  last  min 
ute  I  found  one  called  'The  Fallacy  of  Christian 
ity'  slipped  down  behind  the  dresser  in  his  room, 
and  we  put  that  in." 

It  was  "The  Fallacy  of  Christianity"  that 
Maggie  had  brought  me  that  morning. 

"It  is  a  most  interesting  story,"  I  observed. 
"What  delicious  tea,  Mrs.  Graves !  And  then  you 
fastened  up  the  box  and  saw  it  thrown  into  the 
river.  It  was  quite  a  ceremony." 

"My  dear,"  Mrs.  Graves  said  solemnly,  "it 
was  not  a  ceremony.  It  was  a  rite — a  signifi 
cant  rite." 

How  can  I  reconcile  the  thoughts  I  had  that 
afternoon  with  my  later  visit  to  Miss  Emily? 
The  little  upper  room  in  the  village,  dominated 
and  almost  filled  by  an  old-fashioned  bed,  and 
Miss  Emily,  frail  and  delicate  and  beautifully 
neat,  propped  with  pillows  and  holding  a  fine 
handkerchief,  as  fresh  as  the  flutings  of  her  small 
cap,  in  her  hand.  On  a  small  stand  beside  the 
bed  were  her  Bible,  her  spectacles,  and  her  quaint 
old-fashioned  gold  watch. 

And  Miss  Emily  herself?  She  was  altered, 
shockingly  altered.  A  certain  tenseness  had 
gone,  a  tenseness  that  had  seemed  to  uphold  her 


250  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

frail  body  and  carry  her  about.  Only  her  eyes 
seemed  greatly  alive,  and  before  I  left  they,  too, 
had  ceased  their  searching  of  mine  and  looked 
weary  and  old. 

And,  at  the  end  of  my  short  visit,  I  had  reluc 
tantly  reached  this  conclusion :  either  Miss  Emily 
had  done  the  thing  she  confessed  to  doing,  in 
credible  as  it  might  appear,  or  she  thought  she 
had  done  it ;  and  the  thing  was  killing  her. 

She  knew  I  had  found  the  confession.  I  knew 
that.  It  was  written  large  over  her.  What  she 
had  expected  me  to  do  God  only  knows.  To  stand 
up  and  denounce  her?  To  summon  the  law?  I 
do  not  know. 

She  said  an  extrordinary  thing,  when  at  last 
I  rose  to  go.  I  believe  now  that  it  was  to  give  me 
my  chance  to  speak.  Probably  she  found  the 
suspense  intolerable.  But  I  could  not  do  it.  I 
was  too  surprised,  too  perplexed,  too — well, 
afraid  of  hurting  her.  I  had  the  feeling,  I  know, 
that  I  must  protect  her.  And  that  feeling  never 
left  me  until  the  end. 

"I  think  you  must  know,  my  dear/'  she  said, 
from  her  pillows,  "that  I  have  your  Paisley 
shawl." 

I  was  breathless.  "I  thought  that,  perhaps" — 
I  stumbled. 

"It  was  raining  that  night,"  she  said  in  her 


THE  CONFESSION  251 

soft,  delicate  voice.  "I  have  had  it  dried  and 
pressed.  It  is  not  hurt.  I  thought  you  would 
not  mind,"  she  concluded. 

"It  does  not  matter  at  all — not  in  the  least,"  I 
said  unhappily. 

I  am  quite  sure  now  that  she  meant  me  to  speak 
then.  I  can  recall  the  way  she  fixed  her  eyes  on 
me,  serene  and  expectant.  She  was  waiting.  But 
to  save  my  life  I  could  not.  And  she  did  not. 
Had  she  gone  as  far  as  she  had  the  strength  to 
go?  Or  was  this  again  one  of  those  curious  pacts 
of  hers — if  I  spoke  or  was  silent,  it  was  to  be? 

I  do  not  know. 

I  do  know  that  we  were  both  silent  and  that  at 
last,  with  a  quick  breath,  she  reached  out  and 
thumped  on  the  floor  with  a  cane  that  stood  be 
side  the  bed  until  a  girl  came  running  up  from 
below  stairs. 

"Get  the  shawl,  Fanny,  dear,"  said  Miss  Emily, 
"and  wrap  it  up  for  Miss  Blakiston." 

I  wanted  desperately,  while  the  girl  left  the 
room  to  obey,  to  say  something  helpful,  some 
thing  reassuring.  But  I  could  not.  My  voice 
failed  me.  And  Miss  Emily  did  not  give  me  an 
other  opportunity.  She  thanked  me  rather  for 
mally  for  the  flowers  I  had  brought  from  her 
garden,  and  let  me  go  at  last  with  the  parcel 


252 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

under  my  arm,  without  further  reference  to  it. 
The  situation  was  incredible. 

Somehow  I  had  the  feeling  that  Miss  Emily 
would  never  reopen  the  subject  again.  She  had 
given  me  my  chance,  at  who  knows  what  cost, 
and  I  had  not  taken  it.  There  had  been  some 
thing  in  her  good-by — I  can  not  find  words  for  it, 
but  it  was  perhaps  a  finality,  an  effect  of  a 
closed  door — that  I  felt  without  being  able  to 
analyze. 

I  walked  back  to  the  house,  refusing  the  offices 
of  Mr.  Staley,  who  met  me  on  the  road.  I 
needed  to  think.  But  thinking  took  me  nowhere. 
Only  one  conclusion  stood  out  as  a  result  of  a 
mile  and  a  half  of  mental  struggle.  Something 
must  be  done.  Miss  Emily  ought  to  be  helped. 
She  was  under  a  strain  that  was  killing  her. 

But  to  help  I  should  know  the  facts.  Only, 
were  there  any  facts  to  know?  Suppose — just 
by  way  of  argument,  for  I  did  not  believe  it — 
that  the  confession  was  true;  how  could  I  find 
out  anything  about  it?  Five  years  was  a  long 
time.  I  could  not  go  to  the  neighbors.  They 
were  none  too  friendly  as  it  was.  Besides,  the 
secret,  if  there  was  one,,  was  not  mine,  but  was 
Miss  Emily's. 

I  reached  home  at  last,  and  smuggled  the  shawl 
into  the  house.  I  had  no  intention  of  explain- 


THE  CONFESSION 253 

ing  its  return  to  Maggie.  Yet,  small  as  it  was  in 
its  way,  it  offered  a  problem  at  once.  For  Maggie 
has  a  penetrating  eye  and  an  inquiring  nature.  I 
finally  decided  to  take  the  bull  by  the  horns  and 
hang  it  in  its  accustomed  place  in  the  hall,  where 
Maggie,  finding  it  at  nine  o'clock  that  evening, 
set  up  such  a  series  of  shrieks  and  exclamations 
as  surpassed  even  her  own  record. 

I  knitted  that  evening.  It  has  been  my  custom 
for  years  to  knit  bedroom-slippers  for  an  old 
ladies'  home  in  which  I  am  interested.  Because  I 
can  work  at  them  with  my  eyes  shut,  through 
long  practise,  I  find  the  work  soothing.  So  that 
evening  I  knitted  at  Eliza  Klinordlinger's  fifth 
annual  right  slipper,  and  tried  to  develop  a  course 
of  action. 

I  began  with  a  major  premise — to  regard  the 
confession  as  a  real  one,  until  it  was  proved 
otherwise.  Granted,  then,  that  my  little  old  Miss 
Emily  had  killed  a  woman. 

ist — Who  was  the  woman? 

2nd — Where  is  the  body? 

3rd — What  was  the  reason  for  the  crime? 

Question  two  I  had  a  tentative  answer  for. 
However  horrible  and  incredible  it  seemed,  it  was 
at  least  possible  that  Miss  Emily  had  substituted 
the  body  for  the  books,  and  that  what  Mrs. 
Graves  described  as  a  rite  had  indeed  been  one. 


254  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

But  that  brought  up  a  picture  I  could  not  face. 

And  yet 

I  called  up  the  local  physician,  a  Doctor  Lin- 
gard,  that  night  and  asked  him  about  Miss 
Emily's  condition.  He  was  quite  frank  with  me. 

"It's  just  a  breaking  up,"  he  said.  "It  has 
come  early,  because  she  has  had  a  trying  life,  and 
more  responsibility  than  she  should  have  had/' 

"I  have  been  wondering  if  a  change  of  scene 
would  not  be  a  good  thing/'  I  suggested.  But  he 
was  almost  scornful. 

"Change !"  he  said.  "I've  been  after  her  to  get 
away  for  years.  She  won't  leave.  I  don't  believe 
she  has  been  twelve  miles  away  in  thirty  years." 

"I  suppc  se  her  brother  was  a  great  care,"  I 
observed. 

It  seemed  to  me  that  the  doctor's  hearty  voice 
was  a  trifle  less  frank  when  he  replied.  But  when 
I  rang  off  I  told  myself  that  I,  too,  was  becoming 
neurasthenic  and  suspicious.  I  had,  however, 
learned  what  I  had  wanted  to  know.  Miss  Emily 
had  had  no  life  outside  Bolivar  County.  The 
place  to  look  for  her  story  was  here,  in  the  im 
mediate  vicinity. 

That  night  I  made  a  second  visit  to  the  base 
ment.  It  seemed  to  me,  with  those  chaotic 
shelves  before  me,  that  something  of  the  haste 
and  terror  of  a  night  five  years  before  came  back 


THE  CONFESSION 255 

to  me,  a  night  when,  confronted  by  the  necessity 
for  concealing  a  crime,  the  box  upstairs  had  been 
hurriedly  unpacked,  its  contents  hidden  here  and 
locked  away,  and  some  other  content,  inert  and 
heavy,  had  taken  the  place  of  the  books. 

Miss  Emily  in  her  high  bed,  her  Bible  and  spec 
tacles  on  the  stand  beside  her,  her  starched  pil 
lows,  her  soft  and  highbred  voice?  Or  another 
Miss  Emily,  panting  and  terror-stricken,  carry 
ing  down  her  armfuls  of  forbidden  books,  her 
slight  figure  bent  under  their  weight,  her  ears 
open  for  sounds  from  the  silent  house  ?  Or  that 
third  Miss  Emily,  Martin  Sprague's,  a  strange 
wild  creature,  neither  sane  nor  insane,  building 
a  crime  out  of  the  fabric  of  a  nightmare?  Which 
was  the  real  Emily  Benton? 

Or  was  there  another  contingency  that  I  had 
not  thought  of?  Had  some  secret  enemy  of  Miss 
Emily's,  some  hysterical  girl  from  the  parish, 
suffering  under  a  fancied  slight,  or  some  dis 
missed  and  revengeful  servant,  taken  this  strange 
method  of  retaliation,  done  it  and  then  warned 
the  little  old  lady  that  her  house  contained  such 
a  paper?  I  confess  that  this  last  thought  took 
hold  on  me.  It  offered  a  way  out  that  I  clutched 
at. 

I  had  an  almost  frantic  feeling  by  that  time 
that  I  must  know  the  truth.  Suspense  was  weigh- 


256 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

ing  on  me.  And  Maggie,  never  slow  to  voice  an 
unpleasant  truth,  said  that  night,  as  she  brought 
the  carafe  of  ice-water  to  the  library,  "You're 
going  off  the  last  few  days,  Miss  Agnes."  And 
when  I  made  no  reply:  "You're  sagging  around 
the  chin.  There's  nothing  shows  age  like  the 
chin.  If  you'd  rub  a  little  lemon-juice  on  at  night 
you'd  tighten  up  some." 

I  ignored  her  elaborately,  but  I  knew  she  was 
right.  Heat  and  sleepless  nights  and  those  early 
days  of  fear  had  told  on  me.  And  although  I 
usually  disregard  Maggie's  cosmetic  suggestions, 
culled  from  the  beauty  columns  of  the  evening 
paper,  a  look  in  the  mirror  decided  me.  I  went 
downstairs  for  the  lemon.  At  least,  I  thought  it 
was  for  the  lemon.  I  am  not  sure.  I  have  come 
to  be  uncertain  of  my  motives.  It  is  distinctly 
possible  that,  sub-consciously,  I  was  making  for 
the  cellar  all  the  time.  I  only  know  that  I  landed 
there,  with  a  lemon  in  my  hand,  at  something 
after  eleven  o'clock. 

The  books  were  piled  in  disorder  on  the  shelves. 
Their  five  years  of  burial  had  not  hurt  them  be 
yond  a  slight  dampness  of  the  leaves.  No  hand, 
I  believe,  had  touched  them  since  they  were  taken 
from  the  box  where  Mrs.  Graves  had  helped  to 
pack  them.  Then,  if  I  were  shrewd,  I  should  per- 


THE  CONFESSION 257 

haps  gather  something-  from  their  very  disorder. 
But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  I  did  not. 

I  would,  quite  certainly,  have  gone  away  as  I 
came,  clueless,  had  I  not  attempted  to  straighten 
a  pile  of  books,  dangerously  sagging — like  my 
chin ! — and  threatening  a  fall.  My  effort  was  re 
warded  by  a  veritable  Niagara  of  books.  They 
poured  over  the  edge,  a  few  first,  then  more,  until 
I  stood,  it  seemed,  knee-deep  in  a  raging  sea  of 
atheism. 

Somewhat  grimly  I  set  to  work  to  repair  the 
damage,  and  one  by  one  I  picked  them  up  and 
restored  them.  I  put  them  in  methodically  this 
time,  glancing  at  each  title  to  place  the  volume 
upright.  Suddenly,  out  of  the  darkness  of  un 
belief,  a  title  caught  my  eye  and  held  it,  "The 
Handwriting  of  God."  I  knew  the  book.  It  had 
fallen  into  bad  company,  but  its  theology  was  un 
impeachable.  It  did  not  belong.  It — 

I  opened  it.  The  Reverend  Samuel  Thaddeus 
had  written  his  own  name  in  it,  in  the  cramped 
hand  I  had  grown  to  know.  Evidently  its  pres 
ence  there  was  accidental.  I  turned  it  over  in 
my  hands,  and  saw  that  it  was  closed  down  on 
something,  on  several  things,  indeed.  They 
proved  to  be  a  small  black  note-book,  a  pair  of 
spectacles,  a  woman's  handkerchief. 

I  stood  there  looking  at  them.     They  might 


258 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

mean  nothing  but  the  accidental  closing  of  a 
book,  which  was  mistakenly  placed  in  bad  com 
pany,  perhaps  by  Mrs.  Graves.  I  was  inclined 
to  doubt  her  knowledge  of  religious  literature. 
Or  they  might  mean  something  more,  something 
I  had  feared  to  find. 

Armed  with  the  volume,  and  the  lemon  for 
gotten — where  the  cook  found  it  the  next  day  and 
made  much  of  the  mystery — I  went  upstairs 
again. 

Viewed  in  a  strong  light,  the  three  articles 
took  on  real  significance.  The  spectacles  I  fan 
cied  were  Miss  Emily's.  They  were,  to  all  ap 
pearances,  the  duplicates  of  those  on  her  tidy 
bedside  stand.  But  the  handkerchief  was  not 
hers.  Even  without  the  scent,  which  had  left  it, 
but  clung  obstinately  to  the  pages  of  the  book, 
I  knew  it  was  not  hers.  It  was  florid,  embroid 
ered,  and  cheap.  And  held  close  to  the  light,  I 
made  out  a  laundry-mark  in  ink  on  the  border. 
The  name  was  either  Wright  or  Knight. 

The  note-book  was  an  old  one,  and  covered  a 
period  of  almost  twenty  years.  It  contained  dates 
and  cash  entries.  The  entries  were  nearly  all  in 
the  Reverend  Samuel  Thaddeus's  hand,  but  after 
the  date  of  his  death  they  had  been  continued  in 
Miss  Emily's  writing.  They  varied  little,  save 
that  the  amounts  graduallv  increased  toward  the 


THE  CONFESSION  259 

end,  and  the  dates  were  further  apart.  Thus,  in 
1898  there  were  six  entries,  aggregating  five 
hundred  dollars.  In  1902-1903  there  were  no 
entries  at  all,  but  in  1904  there  was  a  single 
memorandum  of  a  thousand  dollars.  The  entire 
amount  must  have  been  close  to  twenty-five  thou 
sand  dollars.  There  was  nothing  to  show  whether 
it  was  money  saved  or  money  spent,  money  paid 
out  or  come  in. 

But  across  the  years  1902  and  1903,  the  Rev 
erend  Thaddeus  had  written  diagonally  the  word 
"Australia."  There  was  a  certain  amount  of  en 
lightenment  there.  Carlo  Benton  had  been  in 
Australia  during  those  years.  In  his  "Fifty  Years 
in  Bolivar  County,"  the  father  had  rather  naively 
quoted  a  letter  from  Carlo  Benton  in  Melbourne. 
A  record,  then,  in  all  probability,  of  sums  paid  by 
this  harassed  old  man  to  a  worthless  son. 

Only  the  handkerchief  refused  to  be  accounted 
for. 

I  did  not  sleep  that  night.  More  and  more,  as 
I  lay  wide-eyed  through  the  night,  it  seemed  to 
me  that  Miss  Emily  must  be  helped,  that  she 
was  drifting  miserably  out  of  life  for  need  of  a 
helping  hand. 

Once,  toward  morning,  I  dozed  off,  to  waken 
in  a  state  of  terror  that  I  recognized  as  a  return 


260 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

of  the  old  fear.  But  it  left  me  soon,  although 
I  lay  awake  until  morning. 

That  day  I  made  two  resolves — to  send  for 
Willie  and  to  make  a  determined  effort  to  see 
the  night  telephone-operator.  My  letter  to  Willie 
off,  I  tried  to  fill  the  day  until  the  hour  when  the 
night  telephone-operator  was  up  and  about,  late 
in  the  afternoon. 

The  delay  was  simplified  by  the  arrival  of  Mrs. 
Graves,  in  white  silk  gloves  and  a  black  cotton 
umbrella  as  a  sunshade.  She  had  lost  her  air  of 
being  afraid  I  might  patronize  her,  and  explained 
pantingly  that  she  had  come  on  an  errand,  not  to 
call. 

"I'm  at  my  Christmas  presents  now,"  she  said, 
"and  I've  fixed  on  a  bedroom  set  for  Miss  Emily. 
I  suppose  you  won't  care  if  I  go  right  up  and 
measure  the  dresser-top,  will  you?" 

I  took  her  up,  and  her  sharp  eyes  roved  over 
the  stairs  and  the  upper  hall. 

"That's  where  Carlo  died,"  she  said.  "It's 

never  been  used  since,  unless  you "  she  had 

paused,  staring  into  Miss  Emily's  deserted  bed 
room.  "It's  a  good  thing  I  came,"  she  said. 
"The  eye's  no  use  to  trust  to,  especially  for 
bureaus." 

She  looked  around  the  room.  There  was,  at 
that  moment,  something  tender  about  her.  She 


THE  CONFESSION  261 

even  lowered  her  voice  and  softened  it.  It  took 
on,  almost  comically,  the  refinements  of  Miss 
Emily's  own  speech. 

"Whose  photograph  is  that?"  she  asked  sud 
denly.  "I  don't  know  that  I  ever  saw  it  before. 
But  it  looks  familiar,  too." 

She  reflected  before  it.  It  was  clear  that  she 
felt  a  sort  of  resentment  at  not  recognizing  the 
young  and  smiling  woman  in  the  old  walnut 
frame,  but  a  moment  later  she  was  measuring 
the  dresser-top,  her  mind  set  on  Christmas  benev 
olence. 

However,  before  she  went  out,  she  paused  near 
the  photograph. 

"It's  queer,"  she  said.  "I've  been  in  this  room 
about  a  thousand  times,  and  I've  never  noticed 
it  before.  I  suppose  you  can  get  so  accustomed 
to  a  thing  that  you  don't  notice  it." 

As  she  went  out,  she  turned  to  me,  and  I 
gathered  that  not  only  the  measurement  for  a  gift 
had  brought  her  that  afternoon. 

"About  those  books,"  she  said.  "I  run  on  a  lot 
when  I  get  to  talking.  I  suppose  I  shouldn't  have 
mentioned  them.  But  I'm  sure  you'll  keep  the 
story  to  yourself.  I've  never  even  told  Air. 
Graves." 

"Of  course  I  shall,"  I  assured  her.  "But— 
didn't  the  hackman  see  you  packing  the  books?" 


262  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

"No,  indeed.  We  packed  them  the  afternoon 
after  the  funeral,  and  it  was  the  next  day  that 
Staley  took  them  off.  He  thought  it  was  old  bed 
ding  and  so  on,  and  he  hinted  to  have  it  given 
to  him.  So  Miss  Emily  and  I  went  along  to  see 
it  was  done  right." 

So  I  discovered  that  the  box  had  sat  overnight 
in  the  Benton  house.  There  remained,  if  I  was 
to  help  Miss  Emily,  to  discover  what  had  occur 
red  in  those  dark  hours  when  the  books  were 
taken  out  and  something  else  substituted. 

The  total  result  of  my  conversation  that  after 
noon  on  the  front  porch  of  the  small  frame  house 
on  a  side  street  with  the  night  telephone-operator 
was  additional  mystery. 

I  was  not  prepared  for  it.  I  had  anticipated 
resentment  and  possibly  insolence.  But  I  had  not 
expected  to  find  fright.  Yet  the  girl  was  un 
deniably  frightened.  I  had  hardly  told  her  the 
object  of  my  visit  before  I  realized  that  she  was 
in  a  state  of  almost  panic. 

"You  can  understand  how  I  feel,"  I  said.  "I 
have  no  desire  to  report  the  matter,  of  course. 
But  some  one  has  been  calling  the  house  repeated 
ly  at  night,  listening  until  I  reply,  and  then  hang 
ing  up  the  receiver.  It  is  not  accidental.  It  has 
happened  too  often." 


THE  CONFESSION  263 

"I'm  not  supposed  to  give  out  information 
about  calls/' 

"But — just  think  a  moment.,"  I  went  on.  "Sup 
pose  some  one  is  planning  to  rob  the  house,  and 
using  this  method  of  finding  out  if  we  are  there 
or  not?" 

"I  don't  remember  anything  about  the  calls  you 
are  talking  about,"  she  parried,  without  looking 
at  me.  "As  busy  as  I  am " 

"Nonsense,"  I  put  in,  "you  know  perfectly  well 
what  I  am  talking  about.  How  do  I  know  but 
that  it  is  the  intention  of  some  one  to  lure  me 
downstairs  to  the  telephone  and  then  murder 
me?" 

"I  am  sure  it  is  not  that,"  she  said.  For  almost 
the  first  time  she  looked  directly  at  me,  and  I 
caught  a  flash  of  something — not  defiance.  It 
was,  indeed,  rather  like  reassurance. 

"You  see,  you  know  it  is  not  that."  I  felt  all 
at  once  that  she  did  know  who  was  calling  me  at 
night,  and  why.  And,  moreover,  that  she  would 
not  tell.  If,  as  I  suspected,  it  was  Miss  Emily, 
this  girl  must  be  to  some  extent  in  her  confi 
dence. 

"But — suppose  for  a  moment  that  I  think  I 
know  who  is  calling  me?"  I  hesitated.  She  was 
a  pretty  girl,  with  an  amiable  face,  and  more  than 
a  suggestion  of  good  breeding  and  intelligence 


264 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

about  her.  I  made  a  quick  resolve  to  appeal 
to  her.  "My  dear  child/'  I  said,  "I  want  so  very 
much,  if  I  can,  to  help  some  one  who  is  in  trouble. 
But  before  I  can  help,  I  must  know  that  I  can 
help,  and  I  must  be  sure  it  is  necessary.  I  wonder 
if  you  know  what  I  am  talking  about?" 

"Why  don't  you  go  back  to  the  city?"  she  said 
suddenly.  "Go  away  and  forget  all  about  us 
here.  That  would  help  more  than  anything." 

"But— would  it?"  I  asked  gently.  "Would  my 
going  away  help — her?" 

To  my  absolute  amazement  she  began  to  cry. 
We  had  been  sitting  on  a  cheap  porch  seat,  side 
by  side,  and  she  turned  her  back  to  me  and  put 
her  head  against  the  arm  of  the  bench. 

"She's  going  to  die !"  she  said  shakily.  "She's 
weaker  every  day.  She  is  slipping  away,  and  no 
one  does  anything." 

But  I  got  nothing  more  from  her.  She  had  un 
derstood  me,  it  was  clear,  and  when  at  last  she 
stopped  crying,  she  knew  well  enough  that  she 
had  betrayed  her  understanding.  But  she  would 
not  talk.  I  felt  that  she  was  not  unfriendly,  and 
that  she  wras  uncertain  rather  than  stubborn.  In 
the  end  I  got  up,  little  better  off  than  when  I  came. 

"I'll  give  you  time  to  think  it  over,"  I  said. 
"Not  so  much  about  the  telephone  calls,  because 


THE  CONFESSION  265 

you've  really  answered  that.  But  about  Miss 
Emily.  She  needs  help,  and  I  want  to  help  her. 
But  you  tie  my  hands." 

She  had  a  sort  of  gift  for  silence.  As  I  grew 
later  on  to  know  Anne  Bullard  better,  I  realized 
that  even  more.  So  now  she  sat  silent,  and  let 
me  talk. 

"What  I  want,"  I  said,  "is  to  have  Miss  Emily 
know  that  I  am  friendly — that  I  am  willing  to  do 
anything  to — to  show  my  friendliness.  Any 
thing." 

"You  see,"  she  said,  with  a  kind  of  dogged 
patience,  "it  isn't  really  up  to  you,  or  to  me  either. 
It's  something  else."  She  hesitated.  "She's  very 
obstinate,"  she  added. 

When  I  went  away  I  was  aware  that  her  eyes 
followed  me,  anxious  and  thoughtful  eyes,  with 
something  of  Miss  Emily's  own  wide-eyed  gaze. 

Willie  came  late  the  next  evening.  I  had  in 
deed  gone  up-stairs  to  retire  when  I  heard  his 
car  in  the  drive.  When  I  admitted  him,  he  drew 
me  into  the  library  and  gave  me  a  good  looking 
over. 

"As  I  thought !"  he  said.  "Nerves  gone,  looks 
gone.  I  told  you  Maggie  would  put  a  curse  on 
you.  What  is  it?" 

So  I  told  him.    The  telephone  he  already  knew 


266  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

about.  The  confession  he  read  over  twice,  and 
then  observed,  characteristically,  that  he  would 
be  eternally — I  think  the  word  is  "horn- 
swoggled." 

When  I  brought  out  "The  Handwriting  of 
God,"  following  Mrs.  Graves's  story  of  the  books, 
he  looked  thoughtful.  And  indeed  by  the  end  of 
the  recital  he  was  very  grave. 

"Sprague  is  a  lunatic,"  he  said,  with  conviction. 
"There  was  a  body,  and  it  went  into  the  river  in 
the  packing-case.  It  is  distinctly  possible  that 
this  Knight — or  Wright — woman,  who  owned 
the  handkerchief,  was  the  victim.  However, 
that's  for  later  on.  The  plain  truth  is,  that  there 
was  a  murder,  and  that  Miss  Emily  is  shielding 
some  one  else." 

And,  after  all,  that  was  the  only  immediate 
result  of  Willie's  visit — a  new  theory!  So  that 
now  it  stood:  there  was  a  crime.  There  was  no 
crime.  Miss  Emily  had  committed  it.  Miss  Emliy 
had  not  committed  it.  Miss  Emily  had  confessed 
it,  but  some  one  else  had  committed  it. 

For  a  few  hours,  however,  our  attention  was 
distracted  from  Miss  Emily  and  her  concerns  by 
the  attempted  robbery  of  the  house  that  night. 
I  knew  nothing  of  it  until  I  heard  Willie  shouting 
downstairs.  I  was  deeply  asleep,  relaxed  no 
doubt  by  the  consciousness  that  at  last  there  was 


THE  CONFESSION  267 

a  man  in  the  house.  And,  indeed,  Maggie  slept 
for  the  same  reason  through  the  entire  oc 
currence. 

"Stop,  or  I'll  fire!"  Willie  repeated,  as  I  sat 
up  in  bed. 

I  knew  quite  well  that  he  had  no  weapon. 
There  was  not  one  in  the  house.  But  the  next 
moment  there  was  a  loud  report,  either  a  door 
slamming  or  a  pistol-shot,  and  I  ran  to  the  head 
of  the  stairs. 

There  was  no  light  below,  but  a  current  of  cool 
night  air  came  up  the  staircase.  And  suddenly 
I  realized  that  there  was  complete  silence  in  the 
house. 

"Willie!"  I  cried  out,  in  an  agony  of  fright. 
But  he  did  not  reply.  And  then,  suddenly,  the 
telephone  rang. 

I  did  not  answer  it.  I  know  now  why  it  rang, 
that  there  was  real  anxiety  behind  its  summons. 
But  I  hardly  heard  it  then.  I  was  convinced  that 
Willie  had  been  shot. 

I  must  have  gone  noiselessly  down  the  stairs, 
and  at  the  foot  I  ran  directly  into  Willie.  He 
was  standing  there,  only  a  deeper  shadow  in  the 
blackness,  and  I  had  placed  my  hand  over  his,  as 
it  lay  on  the  newel-post,  before  he  knew  I  was 
on  the  staircase.  He  wheeled  sharply,  and  I 


268  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

felt,  to  my  surprise,  that  he  held  a  revolver  in 
his  hand. 

"Willie!    What  is  it?"  I  said  in  a  low  tone. 

"'Sh,"  he  whispered.  "Don't  move— or 
speak." 

We  listened,  standing  together.  There  were 
undoubtedly  sounds  outside,  some  one  moving 
about,  a  hand  on  a  window-catch,  and  finally  not 
particularly  cautious  steps  at  the  front  door.  It 
swung  open.  I  could  hear  it  creak  as  it  moved 
slowly  on  its  hinges. 

I  put  a  hand  out  to  steady  myself  by  the  com 
fort  of  Willie's  presence  before  me,  between  me 
and  that  softly-opening  door.  But  Willie  was 
moving  forward,  crouched  down,  I  fancied,  and 
the  memory  of  that  revolver  terrified  me. 

"Don't  shoot  him,  Willie!"  I  almost  shrieked. 

"Shoot  whom?"  said  Willie's  cool  voice,  just 
inside  the  door. 

I  knew  then,  and  I  went  sick  all  over.  Some 
where  in  the  hall  between  us  crouched  the  man  I 
had  taken  for  Willie,  crouched  with  a  revolver 
in  his  right  hand.  The  door  was  still  open,  I 
knew,  and  I  could  hear  Willie  fumbling  on  the 
hall-stand  for  matches.  I  called  out  something 
incoherent  about  not  striking  a  light ;  but  Willie, 
whistling  softly  to  show  how  cool  he  was,  struck 


THE  CONFESSION  269 

a  match.  It  was  followed  instantly  by  a  report, 
and  I  closed  my  eyes. 

When  I  opened  them,  Willie  was  standing  un 
hurt,  staring-  over  the  burning  match  at  the  door, 
which  was  closed,  and  I  knew  that  the  report  had 
been  but  the  bang  of  the  heavy  door. 

"What  in  blazes  slammed  that  door?"  he  said. 

"The  burglar,  or  whatever  he  is,"  I  said,  my 
voice  trembling  in  spite  of  me.  "He  was  here,  in 
front  of  me.  I  laid  my  hand  on  his.  He  had  a 
revolver  in  it.  When  you  opened  the  door,  he 
slipped  out  past  you." 

Willie  muttered  something,  and  went  toward 
the  door.  A  moment  later  I  was  alone  again,  and 
the  telephone  was  ringing.  I  felt  my  way  back 
along  the  hall.  I  touched  the  cat,  which  had  been 
sleeping  on  the  telephone-stand.  He  merely 
turned  over. 

I  have  tried,  in  living  that  night  over  again,  to 
record  things  as  they  impressed  me.  For,  after 
all,  this  is  a  narrative  of  motive  rather  than  of 
incidents,  of  emotions  as  against  deeds.  But  at 
the  time,  the  brief  conversation  over  the  telephone 
seemed  to  me  both  horrible  and  unnatural. 

From  a  great  distance  a  woman's  voice  said, 
"Is  anything  wrong  there?" 

That  was  the  first  question,  and  I  felt  quite 
sure  that  it  was  the  Bullard  girl's  voice.  That 


270 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

is,  looking  back  from  the  safety  of  the  next  day, 
I  so  decided.  At  the  time  I  had  no  thought  what 
ever. 

"There  is  nothing  wrong,"  I  replied.  I  do  not 
know  why  I  said  it.  Sorely  there  was  enough 
wrong,  with  Willie  chasing  an  armed  intruder 
through  the  garden. 

I  thought  the  connection  had  been  cut,  for 
there  was  a  buzzing  on  the  wire.  But  a  second 
or  so  later  there  came  an  entirely  different  voice, 
one  I  had  never  heard  before,  a  plaintive  voice, 
full,  I  thought,  of  tears. 

"Oh,  please,"  said  this  voice,  "go  out  and  look 
in  your  garden,  or  along  the  road.  Please — 
quickly!" 

"You  will  have  to  explain,"  I  said  impatiently. 
"Of  course  we  will  go  and  look,  but  who  is  it, 
and  why " 

I  was  cut  off  there,  definitely,  and  I  could  not 
get  "central's"  attention  again. 

Willie's  voice  from  the  veranda  boomed 
through  the  lower  floor.  "This  is  I,"  he  called, 
"No  boiling  water,  please.  I  am  coming  in." 

He  went  into  the  library  and  lighted  a  lamp. 
He  was  smiling  when  I  entered,  a  reassuring 
smile,  but  rather  a  sheepish  one,  too. 

"To  think  of  letting  him  get  by  like  that!"  he 
said.  "The  cheapest  kind  of  a  trick.  He  had 


THE  CONFESSION  271 

slammed  the  door  before  to  make  me  think  he  had 
gone  out,  and  all  the  time  he  was  inside.  And 
you — why  didn't  you  scream?" 

"I  thought  it  was  you,"  I  told  him. 

The  library  was  in  chaos.  Letters  were  lying 
about,  papers,  books.  The  drawer  of  the  large 
desk-table  in  the  center  of  the  room  had  been 
drawn  out  and  searched.  "The  History  of  Boli 
var  County,"  for  instance,  was  lying  on  the  floor, 
face  down,  in  a  most  ignoble  position.  In  one 
place  books  had  been  taken  from  a  recess  by  the 
fireplace,  revealing  a  small  wall  cupboard  be 
hind.  I  had  never  known  of  the  hiding-place,  but 
a  glance  into  it  revealed  only  a  bottle  of  red  ink 
and  the  manuscript  of  a  sermon  on  missions. 

Standing  in  the  disorder  of  the  room,  I  told 
Willie  about  the  telephone-message.  He  listened 
attentively,  and  at  first  skeptically. 

"Probably  a  ruse  to  get  us  out  of  the  house,  but 
coming  a  trifle  late  to  be  useful,"  was  his  com 
ment.  But  I  had  read  distress  in  the  second  voice, 
and  said  so.  At  last  he  went  to  the  telephone. 

"I'll  verify  it,"  he  explained.  "If  some  one  is 
really  anxious,  I'll  get  the  car  and  take  a  scout 
around." 

But  he  received  no  satisfaction  from  the  Bui- 
lard  girl,  who,  he  reported,  listened  stoically  and 
then  said  she  was  sorry,  but  she  did  not  remember 


272 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

who  had  called.  On  his  reminding  her  that  she 
must  have  a  record,  she  countered  with  the  flat 
statement  that  there  had  been  no  call  for  us  that 
night. 

Willie  looked  thoughtful  when  he  returned  to 
the  library.  "There's  a  queer  story  back  of  all 
this/'  he  said.  "I  think  I'll  get  the  car  and  scout 
around." 

"He  is  armed,  Willie,"  I  protested. 

"He  doesn't  want  to  shoot  me,  or  he  could  have 
done  it,"  was  his  answer.  "I'll  just  take  a  look 
around,  and  come  back  to  report." 

It  was  half-past  three  by  the  time  he  was  ready 
to  go.  He  was,  as  he  observed,  rather  sketchily 
clad,  but  the  night  was  warm.  I  saw  him  off, 
and  locked  the  door  behind  him.  Then  I  went 
into  the  library  to  wait  and  to  put  things  to  rights 
while  I  waited. 

The  dawn  is  early  in  August,  and  although  it 
was  not  more  than  half-past  four  when  Willie 
came  back,  it  was  about  daylight  by  that  time.  I 
went  to  the  door  and  watched  him  bring  the  car 
to  ,a  standstill.  He  shook  his  head  when  he 
saw  me. 

"Absolutely  nothing,"  he  said.  "It  was  a  ruse 
to  get  me  out  of  the  house,  of  course.  I've  run 
the  whole  way  between  here  and  town  twice." 


THE  CONFESSION  273 

"But  that  could  not  have  taken  an  hour/'  I 
protested. 

"No,"  he  said.  "I  met  the  doctor— what's  his 
name? — the  local  M.  D.  anyhow — footing  it  out 
of  the  village  to  a  case,  and  I  took  him  to  his  des 
tination.  He  has  a  car,  it  seems,  but  it's  out  of 
order.  Interesting  old  chap,"  he  added,  as  I  led 
the  way  into  the  house.  "Didn't  know  me  from 
Adam,  but  opened  up  when  he  found  who  I  was." 

I  had  prepared  the  coffee  machine  and  carried 
the  tray  to  the  library.  While  I  lighted  the  lamp, 
he  stood,  whistling  softly,  and  thoughtfully.  At 
last  he  said: 

"Look  here,  Aunt  Agnes,  I  think  I'm  a  good 
bit  of  a  fool,  but — some  time  this  morning  I  wish 
you  would  call  up  Thomas  Jenkins,  on  the  Elm- 
burg  road,  and  find  out  if  any  one  is  sick  there." 

But  when  I  stared  at  him,  he  only  laughed 
sheepishly.  "You  can  see  how  your  suspicious 
disposition  has  undermined  and  ruined  my  once 
trusting  nature,"  he  scoffed. 

He  took  his  coffee,  and  then,  stripping  off  his 
ulster,  departed  for  bed.  I  stopped  to  put  away 
the  coffee  machine,  and  with  Maggie  in  mind,  to 
hang  up  his  motor-coat.  It  was  then  that  the 
flashlight  fell  out.  I  picked  it  up.  It  was  shaped 
like  a  revolver. 


274  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

I  stopped  in  Willie's  room  on  my  way  to  my 
own,  and  held  it  out  to  him. 

"Where  did  you  get  that?"  I  asked. 

"Good  heavens !"  he  said,  raising  himself  on 
his  elbow.  "It  belongs  to  the  doctor.  He  gave 
it  to  me  to  examine  the  fan  belt.  I  must  have 
dropped  it  into  my  pocket." 

And  still  I  was  nowhere.  Suppose  I  had 
touched  this  flashlight  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs 
and  mistaken  it  for  a  revolver.  Suppose  that  the 
doctor,  making  his  way  toward  the  village  and 
finding  himself  pursued,  had  faced  about  and 
pretended  to  be  leaving  it?  Grant,  in  a  word, 
that  Doctor  Lingard  himself  had  been  our  night 
visitor — what  then  ?  Why  had  he  done  it  ?  What 
of  the  telephone-call,  urging  me  to  search  the 
road?  Did  some  one  realize  what  was  happen 
ing,  and  take  this  method  of  warning  us  and 
sending  us  after  the  fugitive? 

I  knew  the  Thomas  Jenkins  farm  on  the  Elms- 
burg  road.  I  had,  indeed,  bought  vegetables  and 
eggs  from  Mr.  Jenkins  himself.  That  morning, 
as  early  as  I  dared,  I  called  the  Jenkins  farm. 
Mr.  Jenkins  himself  would  bring  me  three  dozen 
eggs  that  day.  They  were  a  little  torn  up  out 
there,  as  Mrs.  Jenkins  had  borne  a  small  daughter 
at  seven  A.  M. 


THE  CONFESSION  275 

When  I  told  Willie,  he  was  evidently  relieved. 

"I'm  glad  of  it,"  he  said  heartily.  "The  doc 
tor's  a  fine  old  chap,  and  I'd  hate  to  think  he  was 
mixed  up  in  any  shady  business." 

He  was  insistent,  that  day,  that  I  give  up  the 
house.  He  said  it  was  not  safe,  and  I  was  in 
clined  to  agree  with  him.  But  although  I  did  not 
tell  him  of  it,  I  had  even  more  strongly  than 
ever  the  impression  that  something  must  be  done 
to  help  Miss  Emily,  and  that  I  was  the  one  who 
must  do  it. 

Yet,  in  the  broad  light  of  day,  with  the  sun 
shine  pouring  into  the  rooms,  I  was  compelled  to 
confess  that  Willie's  theory  was  more  than  up 
held  by  the  facts.  First  of  all  was  the  character 
of  Miss  Emily  as  I  read  it,  sternly  conscientious, 
proud,  and  yet  gentle.  Second,  there  was  the 
connection  of  the  Bullard  girl  with  the  case. 
And  third,  there  was  the  invader  of  the  night  be 
fore,  an  unknown  quantity  where  so  much  seemed 
known,  where  a  situation  involving  Miss  Emily 
alone  seemed  to  call  for  no  one  else. 

\Villie  put  the  matter  flatly  to  me  as  he  stood 
in  the  hall,  drawing  on  his  driving  gloves. 

"Do  you  want  to  follow  it  up?"  he  asked. 
"Isn't  it  better  to  let  it  go?  After  all,  you  have 
only  rented  the  house.  You  haven't  taken  over 
its  history,  or  any  responsibility  but  the  rent/' 


276  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

"I  think  Miss  Emily  needs  to  be  helped,"  I 
said,  rather  feebly. 

"Let  her  friends  help  her.  She  has  plenty  of 
them.  Besides,  isn't  it  rather  a  queer  way  to 
help  her,  to  try  to  fasten  a  murder  on  her?" 

I  could  not  explain  what  I  felt  so  strongly — 
that  Miss  Emily  could  only  be  helped  by  being 
hurt,  that  whatever  she  was  concealing,  the  long 
concealment  was  killing  her.  That  I  felt  in  her — 
it  is  always  difficult  to  put  what  I  felt  about  Miss 
Emily  into  words — that  she  both  hoped  for  and 
dreaded  desperately  the  light  of  the  truth. 

But  if  I  was  hardly  practical  when  it  came  to 
Miss  Emily,  I  was  rational  enough  in  other 
things.  It  is  with  no  small  pride — but  without 
exultation,  for  in  the  end  it  cost  too  much — that 
I  point  to  the  solution  of  one  issue  as  my  own. 

With  Willie  gone,  Maggie  and  I  settled  down 
to  the  quiet  tenure  of  our  days.  She  informed 
me,  on  the  morning  after  that  eventful  night, 
that  she  had  not  closed  an  eye  after  one  o'clock! 
She  came  into  the  library  and  asked  me  if  I 
could  order  her  some  sleeping-powders. 

"Fiddlesticks !"  I  said  sharply.  "You  slept  all 
night.  I  was  up  and  around  the  house,  and  you 
never  knew  it." 

"Honest  to  heaven,  Miss  Agnes,  I  never  slep' 


THE  CONFESSION  277 

at  all.  I  heard  a  horse  gallopin',  like  it  was  run- 
nin'  off,  and  it  waked  me  for  good/' 

And  after  a  time  I  felt  that,  however  mistaken 
Maggie  had  been  about  her  night's  sleep,  she  was 
possibly  correct  about  the  horse. 

"He  started  to  run  about  the  stable  some 
where,"  she  said.  "You  can  smile  if  you  want. 
That's  the  heaven's  truth.  And  he  came  down 
the  drive  on  the  jump  and  out  onto  the  road." 

"We  can  go  and  look  for  hoof-marks/'  I 
said,  and  rose.  But  Maggie  only  shook  her  head. 

"It  was  no  real  horse,  Miss  Agnes,"  she  said. 
"You'll  find  nothing.  Anyhow,  I've  been  and 
looked.  There's  not  a  mark." 

But  Maggie  was  wrong.  I  found  hoof-prints 
in  plenty  in  the  turf  beside  the  drive,  and  a  track 
of  them  through  the  lettuce-bed  in  the  garden. 
More  than  that,  behind  the  stable  I  found  where 
a  horse  had  been  tied  and  had  broken  away.  A 
piece  of  worn  strap  still  hung  there.  It  was  suf 
ficiently  clear,  then,  that  whoever  had  broken  into 
the  house  had  come  on  horseback  and  left  afoot. 
But  many  people  in  the  neighborhood  used  horses. 
The  clue,  if  clue  it  can  be  called,  got  me  nowhere. 

IV 

For  several  days  things  remained  in  statu  quo. 
Our  lives  went  on  evenly.  The  telephone  was 


278  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

at  our  service,  without  any  of  its  past  vagaries. 
Maggie's  eyes  ceased  to  look  as  if  they  were 
being  pushed  out  from  behind,  and  I  ceased  to 
waken  at  night  and  listen  for  untoward  signs. 

Willie  telephoned  daily.  He  was  frankly  un 
easy  about  my  remaining  there.  "You  know 
something  that  somebody  resents  your  knowing," 
he  said,  a  day  or  two  after  the  night  visitor.  "It 
may  become  very  uncomfortable  for  you/' 

And,  after  a  day  or  two,  I  began  to  feel  that 
it  was  being  made  uncomfortable  for  me.  I  am 
a  social  being;  I  like  people.  In  the  city  my 
neighborly  instincts  have  died  of  a  sort  of  brick- 
wall  apathy,  but  in  the  country  it  comes  to  life 
again.  The  instinct  of  gregariousness  is  as  old 
as  the  first  hamlets,  I  daresay,  when  prehistoric 
man  ceased  to  live  in  trees,  and  banded  together 
for  protection  from  the  wild  beasts  that  walked 
the  earth. 

The  village  became  unfriendly.  It  was  almost 
a  matter  of  a  night.  One  day  the  postmistress 
leaned  on  the  shelf  at  her  window  and  chatted 
with  me.  The  next  she  passed  out  my  letters 
with  hardly  a  glance.  Mrs.  Graves  did  not  see 
me  at  early  communion  on  Sunday  morning.  The 
hackman  was  busy  when  I  called  him.  It  was 
intangible,  a  matter  of  omission,  not  commission. 
The  doctor's  wife,  who  had  asked  me  to  tea, 


THE  CONFESSION  279 

called  up  and  regretted  that  she  must  go  to  the 
city  that  day. 

I  sat  down  then  and  took  stock  of  things.  Did 
the  village  believe  that  Miss  Emily  must  be  saved 
from  me?  Did  the  village  know  the  story  I  was 
trying  to  learn,  and  was  it  determined  I  should 
never  find  out  the  truth?  And,  if  this  were  so, 
was  the  village  right  or  was  I  ?  They  would  save 
Miss  Emily  by  concealment,  while  I  felt  that  con 
cealment  had  failed,  and  that  only  the  truth  would 
do.  Did  the  village  know,  or  only  suspect?  Or 
was  it  not  the  village  at  all,  but  one  or  two  people 
who  were  determined  to  drive  me  away? 

My  theories  were  rudely  disturbed  shortly  after 
that  by  a  visit  from  Martin  Sprague.  I  fancied 
that  Willie  had  sent  him,  but  he  evaded  my  ques 
tion. 

'Td  like  another  look  at  that  slip  of  paper," 
he  said.  "Where  do  you  keep  it,  by  the  way?" 

"In  a  safe  place,"  I  replied  non-committally, 
and  he  laughed.  The  truth  was  that  I  had  taken 
out  the  removable  inner  sole  of  a  slipper  and  had 
placed  it  underneath,  an  excellent  hiding-place, 
but  one  I  did  not  care  to  confide  to  him.  When 
I  had  brought  it  downstairs,  he  read  it  over 
again  carefully,  and  then  sat  back  with  it  in  his 
hand. 

"Now  tell  me  about  everything,"  he  said. 


280 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

I  did,  while  he  listened  attentively.  Afterward 
we  walked  back  to  the  barn,  and  I  showed  him 
the  piece  of  broken  halter  still  tied  there. 

He  surveyed  it  without  comment,  but  on  the 
way  back  to  the  house  he  said:  "If  the  village 
is  lined  up  as  you  say  it  is,  I  suppose  it  is  useless 
to  interview  the  harness-maker.  He  has  prob 
ably  repaired  that  strap,  or  sold  a  new  one,  to 

whoever It  would  be  a  nice  clue  to  follow 

up." 

"I  am  not  doing  detective  work,"  I  said  shortly. 
"I  am  trying  to  help  some  one  who  is  dying  of 
anxiety  and  terror." 

He  nodded.  "I  get  you,"  he  said.  But  his 
tone  was  not  flippant.  "The  fact  is,  of  course, 
that  the  early  theory  won't  hold.  There  has 
been  a  crime,  and  the  little  old  lady  did  not  com 
mit  it.  But  suppose  you  find  out  who  did  it. 
How  is  that  going  to  help  her?" 

"I  don't  know,  Martin,"  I  said,  in  a  sort  of 
desperation.  "But  I  have  the  most  curious  feel 
ing  that  she  is  depending  on  me.  The  way  she 
spoke  the  day  I  saw  her,  and  her  eyes  and  every 
thing;  I  know  you  think  it  nonsense,"  I  finished 
lamely. 

"I  think  you'd  better  give  up  the  place  and  go 
back  to  town,"  he  said.  But  I  saw  that  he 


THE  CONFESSION  281 

watched  me  carefully,  and  when,  at  last  he  got  up 
to  go,  he  put  a  hand  on  my  shoulder. 

"I  think  you  are  right,  after  all,"  he  said. 
"There  are  a  good  many  things  that  can't  be  rea 
soned  out  with  any  logic  we  have,  but  that  are 
true,  nevertheless.  We  call  it  intuition,  but  it's 
really  subconscious  intelligence.  Stay,  by  all 
means,  if  you  feel  you  should." 

In  the  doorway  he  said:  "Remember  this, 
Miss  Agnes.  Both  a  crime  of  violence  and  a  con 
fession  like  the  one  in  your  hand  are  the  products 
of  impulse.  They  are  not,  either  of  them,  pre 
meditated.  They  are  not  the  work,  then,  of  a 
calculating  or  cautious  nature.  Look  for  a  big, 
emotional  type." 

It  was  a  day  or  two  after  that  that  I  made  my 
visit  to  Miss  Emily.  I  had  stopped  once  before, 
to  be  told  with  an  air  of  finality  that  the  invalid 
was  asleep.  On  this  occasion  I  took  with  me  a 
basket  of  fruit.  I  had  half  expected  a  refusal, 
but  I  was  admitted. 

The  Bullard  girl  was  with  Miss  Emily.  She 
had,  I  think,  been  kneeling  beside  the  bed,  and 
her  eyes  were  red  and  swollen.  But  Miss  Emily 
herself  was  as  cool,  as  dainty  and  starched  and 
fragile  as  ever.  More  so,  I  thought.  She  was 


282 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

thinner,  and  although  it  was  a  warm  Augiist  day, 
a  white  silk  shawl  was  wrapped  around  her  shoul 
ders  and  fastened  with  an  amethyst  brooch.  In 
my  clasp  her  thin  hand  felt  hot  and  dry. 

"I  have  been  waiting  for  you/'  she  said  simply. 

She  looked  at  Anne  Bullard,  and  the  message 
in  her  eyes  was  plain  enough.  But  the  girl  ig 
nored  it.  She  stood  across  the  bed  from  me  and 
eyed  me  steadily. 

"My  dear/'  said  Miss  Emily,  in  her  high-bred 
voice,  "if  you  have  anything  to  do,  Miss  Blakis- 
ton  will  sit  with  me  for  a  little  while." 

"I  have  nothing  to  do/'  said  the  girl  doggedly. 
Perhaps  this  is  not  the  word.  She  had  more  the 
look  of  endurance  and  supreme  patience.  There 
was  no  sharpness  about  her,  although  there  was 
vigilance. 

Miss  Emily  sighed,  and  I  saw  her  eyes  seek 
the  Bible  beside  her.  But  she  only  said  gently: 
"Then  sit  down,  dear.  You  can  work  at  my  knit 
ting  if  you  like.  My  hands  get  very  tired." 

She  asked  me  questions  about  the  house  and 
the  garden.  The  raspberries  were  usually  quite 
good,  and  she  was  rather  celebrated  for  her  let 
tuces.  If  I  had  more  than  I  needed,  would  I  mind 
if  Mr.  Staley  took  a  few  in  to  the  doctor,  who 
was  fond  of  them. 


THE  CONFESSION  283 

The  mention  of  Doctor  Lingard  took  me  back 
to  the  night  of  the  burglary.  I  wondered  if  to 
tell  Miss  Emily  would  unduly  agitate  her.  I 
think  I  would  not  have  told  her,  but  I  caught  the 
girl's  eye,  across  the  bed,  raised  from  her  knit 
ting  and  fixed  on  me  with  a  peculiar  intensity. 
Suddenly  it  seemed  to  me  that  Miss  Emily  was 
surrounded  by  a  conspiracy  of  silence,  and  it 
roused  my  antagonism. 

'There  are  plenty  of  lettuces,"  I  said,  "al 
though  a  few  were  trampled  by  a  runaway  horse 
the  other  night.  It  is  rather  a  curious  story." 

So  I  told  her  of  our  night  visitor.  I  told  it 
humorously,  lightly,  touching  on  my  own  horror 
at  finding  I  had  been  standing  with  my  hand  on 
the  burglar's  shoulder.  But  I  was  sorry  for  my 
impulse  immediately,  for  I  saw  Miss  Emily's  body 
grow  rigid,  and  her  hands  twist  together.  She 
did  not  look  at  me.  She  stared  fixedly  at  the 
girl.  Their  eyes  met. 

It  was  as  if  Miss  Emily  asked  a  question  which 
the  girl  refused  to  answer.  It  was  as  certain 
as  though  it  had  been  a  matter  of  words  instead 
of  glances.  It  was  over  in  a  moment.  Miss 
Bullard  went  back  to  her  knitting,  but  Miss  Emily 
lay  still. 

"I  think  I  should  not  have  told  you,"  I  apolo 
gized.  "I  thought  it  might  interest  you.  Of 


284 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

course  nothing  whatever  was  taken,  and  no  dam 
age  done — except  to  the  lettuces." 

"Anne,"  said  Miss  Emily,  "will  you  bring  me 
some  fresh  water  ?" 

The  girl  rose  reluctantly,  but  she  did  not  go 
farther  than  the  top  of  the  staircase,  just  beyond 
the  door.  We  heard  her  calling  to  some  one  be 
low,  in  her  clear  young  voice,  to  bring  the  water, 
and  the  next  moment  she  was  back  in  the  room. 
But  Miss  Emily  had  had  the  opportunity  for 
one  sentence. 

"I  know  now/'  she  said  quietly,  "that  you  have 
found  it." 

Anne  Bullard  was  watching  from  the  door 
way,  and  it  seemed  to  me,  having  got  so  far,  I 
could  not  retreat.  I  must  go  on. 

"Miss  Bullard,"  I  said.  "I  would  like  to  have 
just  a  short  conversation  with  Miss  Emily.  It  is 
about  a  private  matter.  I  am  sure  you  will  not 
mind  if  I  ask  you " 

"I  shall  not  go  out." 

"Anne!"  said  Miss  Emily  sharply. 

The  girl  was  dogged  enough  by  that  time. 
Both  dogged  and  frightened,  I  felt.  But  she 
stood  her  ground. 

"She  is  not  to  be  worried  about  anything,"  she 
insisted.  "And  she's  not  supposed  to  have  vis 
itors.  That's  the  doctor's  orders." 


THE  CONFESSION  285 

I  felt  outraged  and  indignant,  but  against  the 
stone  wall  of  the  girl's  presence  and  her  distrust 
I  was  helpless.  I  got  up,  with  as  much  dignity 
as  I  could  muster. 

"I  should  have  been  told  that  downstairs." 

'The  woman's  a  fool,"  said  Anne  Bullard,  with 
a  sort  of  suppressed  fierceness.  She  stood  aside 
as,  having  said  good-by  to  Miss  Emily,  I  went 
out,  and  I  felt  that  she  hardly  breathed  until  I 
had  got  safely  to  the  street. 

Looking  back,  I  feel  that  Emily  Benton  died  at 
the  nancls  of  her  friends.  For  she  died,  indeed, 
died  in  the  act  of  trying  to  tell  me  what  they  had 
determined  she  should  never  tell.  Died  of  kind 
ness  and  misunderstanding.  Died  repressed,  as 
she  had  lived  repressed.  Yet,  I  think,  died  calmly 
and  bravely. 

I  had  made  no  further  attempt  to  see  her, 
and  Maggie  and  I  had  taken  up  again  the  quiet 
course  of  our  lives.  The  telephone  did  not  ring 
of  nights.  The  cat  came  and  went,  spending  as 
I  had  learned,  its  days  with  Miss  Emily  and  its 
nights  with  us.  I  have  wondered  since  how  many 
nights  Miss  Emily  had  spent  in  the  low  chair  in 
that  back  hall,  where  the  confession  lay  hidden, 
that  the  cat  should  feel  it  could  sleep  nowhere 
else. 

The  days  went  by,  warm  days  and  cooler  ones, 


286  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

but  rarely  rainy  ones.  The  dust  from  the  road 
settled  thick  over  flowers  and  shrubbery.  The 
lettuces  wilted,  and  those  that  stood  up  in  the  sun 
were  strong  and  bitter.  By  the  end  of  August 
we  were  gasping  in  a  hot  dryness  that  cracked 
the  skin  and  made  any  but  cold  food  impossible. 

Miss  Emily  lay  through  it  all  in  her  hot  upper 
room  in  the  village,  and  my  attempt,  through 
Doctor  Lingard,  to  coax  her  back  to  the  house 
by  offering  to  leave  it  brought  only  a  negative. 

"It  would  be  better  for  her,  you  understand/' 
the  doctor  said,  over  the  telephone.  "But  she  is 
very  determined,  and  she  insists  on  remaining 
where  she  is." 

And  I  believe  this  was  the  truth.  They  would 
surely  have  been  glad  to  get  rid  of  me,  these 
friends  of  Miss  Emily 's. 

I  have  wondered  since  what  they  thought  of 
me,  Anne  Bullard  and  the  doctor,  to  have  feared 
me  as  they  did.  I  look  in  the  mirror,  and  I  see  a 
middle-aged  woman,  with  a  determined  nose, 
slightly  inquisitive,  and  what  I  trust  is  a  humor 
ous  mouth,  for  it  has  no  other  virtues.  But  they 
feared  me.  Perhaps  long  looking  for  a  danger 
affects  the  mental  vision.  Anyhow,  by  the  doc 
tor's  order,  I  was  not  allowed  to  call  and  see  Miss 
Emily  again. 

Then,  one  night,  the  heat  suddenly  lifted.    One 


THE  CONFESSION  287 

moment  I  was  sitting  on  the  veranda,  lifeless  and 
inert,  and  the  next  a  cool  wind,  with  a  hint  of 
rain,  had  set  the  shutters  to  banging  and  the  cur 
tains  to  flowing,  like  flags  of  truce,  from  the  win 
dows.  The  air  was  life,  energy.  I  felt  revivified. 

And  something  of  the  same  sort  must  have  hap 
pened  to  Miss  Emily.  She  must  have  sat  up 
among  her  pillows,  her  face  fanned  with  the  elec 
tric  breeze,  and  made  her  determination  to  see 
me.  Anne  Bullard  was  at  work,  and  she  was  free 
from  observation. 

It  must  have  been  nine  o'clock  when  she  left 
the  house,  a  shaken  little  figure  in  black,  not  as 
neat  as  usual,  but  hooked  and  buttoned,  for  all 
that,  with  no  one  will  ever  know  what  agony  of 
old  hands. 

She  was  two  hours  and  a  half  getting  to  the 
house,  and  the  rain  came  at  ten  o'clock.  By  half 
after  eleven,  when  the  doorbell  rang,  she  was  a 
sodden  mass  of  wet  garments,  and  her  teeth  were 
chattering  when  I  led  her  into  the  library. 

She  could  not  talk.  The  thing  she  had  come 
to  say  was  totally  beyond  her.  I  put  her  to  bed 
in  her  own  room.  And  two  days  later  she  died. 

I  had  made  no  protest  when  Anne  Bullard  pre 
sented  herself  at  the  door  the  morning  after  Miss 
Emily  arrived,  and,  walking  into  the  house,  took 
sleepless  charge  of  the  sick  room.  And  I  made 


288 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

no  reference  save  once  to  the  reason  for  the  trag 
edy.  That  was  the  night  Miss  Emily  died. 

Anne  Bullard  had  called  to  me  that  she  feared 
there  was  a  change,  and  I  went  into  the  sick 
room.  There  was  a  change,  and  I  could  only 
shake  my  head.  She  burst  out  at  me  then. 

"If  only  you  had  never  taken  this  house !"  she 
said.  "You  people  with  money,  you  think  there 
is  nothing  you  can  not  have.  You  came,  and  now 
look!" 

"Anne,"  I  said  with  a  bitterness  I  could  not 
conceal,  "Miss  Emily  is  not  young,  and  I  think 
she  is  ready  to  go.  But  she  has  been  killed  by  her 
friends.  I  wanted  to  help,  but  they  would  not 
allow  me  to." 

Toward  morning  there  was  nothing  more  to 
be  done,  and  we  sat  together,  listening  to  the 
stertorous  breathing  from  the  bed.  Maggie,  who 
had  been  up  all  night,  had  given  me  notice  at 
three  in  the  morning,  and  was  upstairs  packing 
her  trunk. 

I  went  into  my  room,  and  brought  back  Miss 
Emily's  confession. 

"Isn't  it  time/'  I  said,  "to  tell  me  about  this? 
I  ought  to  know,  I  think,  before  she  goes.  If  it 
is  not  true,  you  owe  it  to  her,  I  think."  But  she 
shook  her  head. 


THE  CONFESSION  289 

I  looked  at  the  confession,  and  from  it  to  Miss 
Emily's  pinched  old  face. 

"To  whom  it  may  concern :  On  the  3Oth  day 
of  May,  1911,  I  killed  a  woman  here  in  this 
house.  I  hope  you  will  not  find  this  until  I  am 

dead<  (Signed)         EMILY  BENTON." 

Anne  was  watching  me.  I  went  to  the  mantel 
and  got  a  match,  and  then,  standing  near  the 
bed,  I  lighted  it  and  touched  it  to  the  paper.  It 
burned  slowly,  a  thin  blue  semicircle  of  fire  that 
ate  its  way  slowly  across  until  there  was  but  the 
corner  I  held.  I  dropped  it  into  the  fireplace  and 
watched  it  turn  to  black  ash. 

I  may  have  fancied  it — I  am  always  fancying 
things  about  Miss  Emily — but  I  will  always  think 
that  she  knew.  She  drew  a  longer,  quieter 
breath,  and  her  eyes,  fixed  and  staring,  closed. 
I  think  she  died  in  the  first  sleep  she  had  had  in 
twenty-four  hours. 

I  had  expected  Anne  Bullard  to  show  emotion, 
for  no  one  could  doubt  her  attachment  to  Miss 
Emily.  But  she  only  stood  stoically  by  the  bed 
for  a  moment  and  then,  turning  swiftly,  went  to 
the  wall  opposite  and  took  down  from  the  wall 
the  walnut- framed  photograph  Mrs.  Graves  had 
commented  on. 

Anne  Bullard  stood  with  the  picture  in  her 


290 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

hand,  looking  at  it.  And  suddenly  she  broke  into 
sobs.  It  was  stormy  weeping,  and  I  got  the  im 
pression  that  she  wept,  not  for  Miss  Emily,  but 
for  many  other  things — as  though  the  piled-up 
grief  of  years  had  broken  out  at  last. 

She  took  the  photograph  away,  and  I  never  saw 
it  again. 

Miss  Emily  was  buried  from  her  home.  I  ob 
literated  myself,  and  her  friends,  who  were,  I 
felt,  her  murderers,  came  in  and  took  charge. 
They  paid  me  the  tribute  of  much  politeness,  but 
no  cordiality,  and  I  think  they  felt  toward  me  as 
I  felt  toward  them.  They  blamed  me  with  the 
whole  affair. 

She  left  her  property  all  to  Anne  Bullard,  to 
the  astonished  rage  of  the  congregation,  which 
had  expected  the  return  of  its  dimes  and  quarters, 
no  doubt,  in  the  shape  of  a  new  altar,  or  perhaps 
an  organ. 

"Not  a  cent  to  keep  up  the  mausoleum  or  any 
thing,"  Mrs.  Graves  confided  to  me.  "And  noth 
ing  to  the  church.  All  to  that  telephone-girl, 
who  comes  from  no  one  knows  where!  It's 
enough  to  make  her  father  turn  over  in  his  grave. 
It  has  set  people  talking,  I  can  tell  you/' 

Maggie's  mental  state  during  the  days  preced 
ing  the  funeral  was  curious.  She  coupled  the 


THE  CONFESSION  291 

most  meticulous  care  as  to  the  preparations  for 
the  ceremony,  and  a  sort  of  loving  gentleness 
when  she  decked  Miss  Emily's  small  old  frame 
for  its  last  rites,  with  suspicion  and  hatred  of 
Miss  Emily  living.  And  this  suspicion  she  held 
also  against  Anne  Bullard. 

Yet  she  did  not  want  to  leave  the  house.  I  do 
not  know  just  what  she  expected  to  find.  We 
were  cleaning  up  preparatory  to  going  back  to  the 
city,  and  I  felt  that  at  least  a  part  of  Maggie's  en 
thusiasm  for  corners  was  due  to  a  hope  of  locating 
more  concealed  papers.  She  was  rather  less  than 
polite  to  the  Bullard  girl,  who  was  staying  on  at 
my  invitation — because  the  village  was  now  fla 
grantly  unfriendly  and  suspicious  of  her.  And 
for  some  strange  reason,  the  fact  that  Miss 
Emily's  cat  followed  Anne  everywhere  convinced 
Maggie  that  her  suspicions  were  justified. 

"It's  like  this,  Miss  Agnes,"  she  said  one  morn 
ing,  leaning  on  the  handle  of  a  floor  brush.  "She 
had  some  power  over  the  old  lady,  and  that's  how 
she  got  the  property.  And  I  am  saying  nothing, 
but  she's  no  Christian,  that  girl.  To  see  her  and 
that  cat  going  out  night  after  night,  both  snoop 
ing  along  on  their  tiptoes — it  ain't  normal." 

I  had  several  visits  from  Martin  Sprague  since 
Miss  Emily's  death,  and  after  a  time  I  realized 


292  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

that  he  was  interested  in  Anne.  She  was  quite 
attractive  in  her  mourning  clothes,  and  there  was 
something  about  her,  not  in  feature,  but  in  neat 
ness  and  in  the  way  her  things  had  of,  well,  stay 
ing  in  place,  that  reminded  me  of  Miss  Emily  her 
self.  It  was  rather  surprising,  too,  to  see  the  way 
she  fitted  into  her  new  surroundings  and  circum 
stances. 

But  I  did  not  approve  of  Martin's  attraction 
to  her.  She  had  volunteered  no  information 
about  herself,  she  apparently  had  no  people.  She 
was  a  lady,  I  felt,  although,  with  the  exception  of 
her  new  mourning,  her  clothing  was  shabby  and 
her  linen  even  coarse. 

She  held  the  key  to  the  confession.  I  knew 
that.  And  I  had  no  more  hope  of  getting  it  from 
her  than  I  had  from  the  cat.  So  I  prepared  to 
go  back  to  the  city,  with  the  mystery  unsolved. 
It  seemed  a  pity,  when  I  had  got  so  far  with  it. 
I  had  reconstructed  a  situation  out  of  such  bricks 
as  I  had,,  the  books  in  the  cellar,  Mrs.  Graves's 
story  of  the  river,  the  confession,  possibly  the 
note-book  and  the  handkerchief.  I  had  even 
some  material  left  over  in  the  form  of  the  night 
intruder,  who  may  or  may  not  have  been  the  doc 
tor.  And  then,  having  got  so  far,  I  had  had  to 
stop  for  lack  of  other  bricks. 


THE  CONFESSION  293 

A  day  or  two  before  I  went  back  to  the  city, 
Maggie  came  to  me  with  a  folded  handkerchief 
in  her  hand. 

"Is  that  yours?"  she  asked. 

I  disclaimed  it.  It  was  not  very  fine,  and 
looked  rather  yellow. 

"S'got  a  name  on  it,"  Maggie  volunteered. 
"Wright,  I  think  it  is.  Tain't  hers,  unless  she's 
picked  it  up  somewhere.  It's  just  come  out  of 
the  wash." 

Maggie's  eyes  were  snapping  with  suspicion. 
"There  ain't  any  Wrights  around  here,  Miss  Ag 
nes,"  she  said.  "I  sh'd  say  she's  here  under  a 
false  name.  Wright's  likely  hers." 

In  tracing  the  mystery  of  the  confession,  I  find 
that  three  apparently  disconnected  discoveries 
paved  the  way  to  its  solution.  Of  these  the  hand 
kerchief  came  first. 

I  was  inclined  to  think  that  in  some  manner 
the  handkerchief  I  had  found  in  the  book  in  the 
cellar  had  got  into  the  wash.  But  it  was  where 
I  had  placed  it  for  safety,  in  the  wall-closet  in 
the  library.  I  brought  it  out  and  compared  the 
two.  They  were  unlike,  save  in  the  one  regard. 
The  name  "Wright"  was  clear  enough  on  the  one 
Maggie  had  found.  With  it  as  a  guide,  the  other 
name  was  easily  seen  to  be  the  same.  Moreover, 
both  had  been  marked  by  the  same  hand. 


294 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

Yet,  on  Anne  Bullard  being  shown  the  one 
Maggie  had  found,  she  disclaimed  it.  "Don't  you 
think  some  one  dropped  it  at  the  funeral?"  she 
asked. 

But  I  thought,  as  I  turned  away,  that  she  took 
a  step  toward  me.  When  I  stopped,  however, 
and  faced  about,  she  was  intent  on  something 
outside  the  window. 

And  so  it  went.  I  got  nowhere.  And  now,  by 
way  of  complication,  I.  felt  my  sympathy  for 
Anne's  loneliness  turning  to  genuine  interest. 
She  was  so  stoical,  so  repressed,  and  so  lonely. 
And  she  was  tremendously  proud.  Her  pride 
was  vaguely  reminiscent  of  Miss  Emily's.  She 
bore  her  ostracism  almost  fiercely,  yet  there  were 
times  when  I  felt  her  eyes  on  me,  singularly  gen 
tle  and  appealing.  Yet  she  volunteered  nothing 
about  herself. 

I  intended  to  finish  the  history  of  Bolivar 
County  before  I  left.  I  dislike  not  finishing  a 
book.  Besides,  this  one  fascinated  me — the  smug 
complacence  and  almost  loud  virtue  of  the  au 
thor,  his  satisfaction  in  Bolivar  County,  and  his 
small  hits  at  the  world  outside,  his  patronage  to 
those  not  of  it.  And  always,  when  I  began  to 
read,  I  turned  to  the  inscription  in  Miss  Emily's 
hand,  the  hand  of  the  confession — and  I  won 
dered  if  she  had  really  believed  it  all. 


THE  CONFESSION  295 

So  on  this  day  I  found  the  name  Bullard  in 
the  book.  It  had  belonged  to  the  Reverend  Sam 
uel  Thaddeus's  grandmother,  and  he  distinctly 
stated  that  she  was  the  last  of  her  line.  He  in 
ferred,  indeed,  that  since  the  line  was  to  end,  it 
had  chosen  a  fitting  finish  in  his  immediate  pro 
genitor. 

That  night,  at  dinner,  I  said,  "Anne,  are  there 
any  Bullards  in  this  neighborhood  now?" 

"I  have  never  heard  of  any.  But  I  have  not 
been  here  long." 

"It  is  not  a  common  name,"  I  persisted. 

But  she  received  my  statement  in  silence.  She 
had,  as  I  have  said,  rather  a  gift  for  silence. 

That  afternoon  I  was  wandering  about  the 
garden  snipping  faded  roses  with  Miss  Emily's 
garden  shears,  when  I  saw  Maggie  coming 
swiftly  toward  me.  When  she  caught  my  eye, 
she  beckoned  to  me.  "Walk  quiet,  Miss  Agnes," 
she  said,  "and  don't  say  I  didn't  warn  you.  She's 
in  the  library." 

So,  feeling  hatefully  like  a  spy,  I  went  quietly 
over  the  lawn  toward  the  library  windows.  They 
were  long  ones,  to  the  floor,  and  at  first  I  made 
out  nothing.  Then  I  saw  Anne.  She  was  on  her 
knees,  following  the  border  of  the  carpet  with 
fingers  that  examined  it,  inch  by  inch. 

She  turned,  as  if  she  felt  our  eyes  on  her,  and 


296 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

saw  us.  I  shall  never  forget  her  face.  She 
looked  stricken.  I  turned  away.  There  was 
something  in  her  eyes  that  made  me  think  of  Miss 
Emily,  lying  among  her  pillows  and  waiting  for 
me  to  say  the  thing  she  was  dreading  to  hear. 

I  sent  Maggie  away  with  a  gesture.  There 
was  something  in  her  pursed  lips  that  threatened 
danger.  For  I  felt  then  as  if  I  had  always  known 
it  and  only  just  realized  I  knew  it,  that  some 
where  in  that  room  lay  the  answer  to  all  ques 
tions;  lay  Miss  Emily's  secret.  And  I  did  not 
wish  to  learn  it.  It  was  better  to  go  on  wonder 
ing,  to  question  and  doubt  and  decide  and  decide 
again.  I  was,  I  think,  in  a  state  of  nervous  terror 
by  that  time,  terror  and  apprehension. 

While  Miss  Emily  lived,  I  had  hoped  to  help. 
But  now  it  seemed  too  hatefully  like  accusing 
when  she  could  not  defend  herself.  And  there  is 
another  element  that  I  am  bound  to  acknowledge. 
There  was  an  element  of  jealousy  of  Anne  Bui- 
lard.  Both  of  us  had  tried  to  help  Miss  Emily. 
She  had  foiled  my  attempt  in  her  own  endeavor, 
a  mistaken  endeavor,  I  felt.  But  there  was  now 
to  be  no  blemish  on  my  efforts.  I  would  no  longer 
pry  or  question  or  watch.  It  was  too  late. 

In  a  curious  fashion,  each  of  us  wished,  I  think, 
to  prove  the  quality  of  her  tenderness  for  the 


THE  CONFESSION  297 

little  old  lady  who  was  gone  beyond  all  human 
tenderness. 

So  that  evening,  after  dinner,  I  faced  Anne  in 
the  library. 

"Why  not  let  things  be  as  they  are,  Anne  ?"  I 
asked.  "It  can  do  no  good.  Whatever  it  is,  and 
I  do  not  know,  why  not  let  things  rest?" 

"Some  one  may  find  it,"  she  replied.  "Some 
one  who  does  not  care,  as  I — as  we  care." 

"Are  you  sure  there  is  something?" 

"She  told  me,  near  the  last.  I  only  don't  know- 
just  where  it  is." 

"And  if  you  find  it?" 

"It  is  a  letter.  I  shall  burn  it  without  reading. 
Although,"  she  drew  a  long  breath,  "I  know 
what  it  contains." 

"If  in  any  way  it  comes  into  my  hands,"  I 
assured  her,  "I  shall  let  you  know.  And  I  shall 
not  read  it." 

She  looked  thoughtful  rather  than  grateful. 

"I  hardly  know,"  she  said.  "I  think  she  would 
want  you  to  read  it  if  it  came  to  you.  It  ex 
plains  so  much.  And  it  was  a  part  of  her  plan. 
You  know,  of  course,  that  she  had  a  plan.  It 
was  a  sort  of  arrangement" — she  hesitated — "it 
was  a  sort  of  pact  she  made  with  God,  if  you 
know  what  I  mean." 

That  night  Maggie  found  the  letter. 


298  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

I  had  gone  upstairs,  and  Anne  was,  I  think, 
already  asleep.  I  heard  what  sounded  like  dis 
tant  hammering,  and  I  went  to  the  door.  Some 
one  was  in  the  library  below.  The  light  was 
shining  out  into  the  hall,  and  my  discovery  of 
that  was  followed  almost  immediately  by  the 
faint  splintering  of  wood.  Rather  outraged  than 
alarmed,  I  went  back  for  my  dressing-gown,  and 
as  I  left  the  room,  I  confronted  Maggie  in  the 
hallway.  She  had  an  envelope  in  one  hand,  and 
a  hatchet  in  the  other. 

"I  found  it,"  she  said  briefly. 

She  held  it  out,  and  I  took  it.  On  the  out 
side,  in  Miss  Emily's  writing,  it  said,  "To  whom 
it  may  concern/'  It  was  sealed. 

I  turned  it  over  in  my  hand,  while  Maggie 
talked. 

"When  I  saw  that  girl  crawling  around,"  she 
said,  "seems  to  me  I  remembered  all  at  once  see 
ing  Miss  Emily,  that  day  I  found  her,  running 
her  finger  along  the  baseboard.  Says  I  to  myself, 
there's  something  more  hidden,  and  she  don't 
know  where  it  is.  But  I  do.  So  I  lifted  the  base 
board,  and  this  was  behind  it." 

Anne  heard  her  from  her  room,  and  she  went 
out  soon  afterward.  I  heard  her  going  down 
the  stairs  and  called  to  her.  But  she  did  not 


THE  CONFESSION  299 

answer.    I  closed  the  door  on  Maggie  and  stood 
in  my  room,  staring  at  the  envelope. 

I  have  wondered  since  whether  Miss  Emily, 
had  she  lived,  would  have  put  the  responsibility 
on  Providence  for  the  discovery  of  her  pitiful 
story.  So  many  of  us  blame  the  remorseless 
hand  of  destiny  for  what  is  so  manifestly  our 
own  doing.  It  was  her  own  anxiety,  surely,  that 
led  to  the  discovery  in  each  instance,  yet  I  am 
certain  that  old  Emily  Benton  died,  convinced 
that  a  higher  hand  than  any  on  earth  had  directed 
the  discovery  of  the  confession. 

Miss  Emily  has  been  dead  for  more  than  a  year 
now.  To  publish  the  letter  can  do  her  no  harm. 
In  a  way,  too,  I  feel,  it  may  be  the  fulfilment  of 
that  strange  pact  she  made.  For  just  as  discovery 
was  the  thing  she  most  dreaded,  so  she  felt  that 
by  paying  her  penalty  here  she  would  be  saved 
something  beyond — that  sort  of  spiritual  book 
keeping  which  most  of  us  call  religion. 

Anne  Sprague — she  is  married  now  to  Martin 
— has,  I  think,  some  of  Miss  Emily's  feeling  about 
it,  although  she  denies  it.  But  I  am  sure  that  in 
consenting  to  the  recording  of  Miss  Emily's  story, 
she  feels  that  she  is  doing  what  that  gentle  fatal 
ist  would  call  following  the  hand  of  Providence. 

I  read  the  letter  that  night  in  the  library,  \vhere 


300 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

the  light  was  good.     It  was  a  narrative,  not  a 
letter,  strictly  speaking.    It  began  abruptly. 

"I  must  set  down  this  thing  as  it  happened.  I 
shall  write  it  fully,  because  I  must  get  it  off  my 
mind.  I  find  that  I  am  always  composing  it, 
and  that  my  lips  move  when  I  walk  along  the 
street  or  even  when  I  am  sitting  in  church.  How 
terrible  if  I  should  some  day  speak  it  aloud.  My 
great-grandmother  was  a  Catholic.  She  was  a 
Bullard.  Perhaps  it  is  from  her  that  I  have  this 
overwhelming  impulse  to  confession.  And  lately 
I  have  been  terrified.  I  must  tell  it,  or  I  shall 
shriek  it  out  some  day,  in  the  church,  during  the 
Litany.  'From  battle  and  murder,  and  from  sud 
den  death,  Good  Lord,  deliver  us.'  " 

(There  was  a  space  here.  When  the  writing 
began  again,  time  had  elapsed.  The  ink  was 
different,  the  writing  more  controlled.) 

"What  a  terrible  thing  hate  is.  It  is  a  poison. 
It  penetrates  the  mind  and  the  body  and  changes 
everything.  I,  who  once  thought  I  could  hate  no 
one,  now  find  that  hate  is  my  daily  life,  my  get 
ting  up  and  lying  down,  my  sleep,  my  waking. 

4  'From  hatred,  envy,  and  malice,  and  all  un- 
charitableness,  Good  Lord,  deliver  us.' 

"Must  one  suffer  twice  for  the  same  thing? 
Is  it  not  true  that  we  pay  but  one  penalty  ?  Surely 


THE  CONFESSION  301 

we  pay  either  here  or  beyond,  but  not  both.  Oh, 
not  both! 

' 'Will  this  ever  be  found?  Where  shall  I  hide 
it?  For  I  have  the  feeling  that  I  must  hide  it, 
not  destroy  it — as  the  Catholic  buries  his  sin  with 
the  priest.  My  father  once  said  that  it  is  the 
healthful  humiliation  of  the  confessional  that  is 
its  reason  for  existing.  If  humiliation  be  a 
virtue " 

I  have  copied  the  confession  to  this  point, 
but  I  find  I  can  not  go  on.  She  was  so  merciless 
to  herself,  so  hideously  calm,  so  exact  as  to  dates 
and  hours.  She  had  laid  her  life  on  the  table 
and  dissected  it — for  the  Almighty ! 

I  heard  the  story  that  night  gently  told,  and 
somehow  I  feel  that  that  is  the  version  by  which 
Miss  Emily  will  be  judged. 

"If  humiliation  be  a  virtue "  I  read  and 

was  about  to  turn  the  page,  when  I  heard  Anne 
in  the  hall.  She  was  not  alone.  I  recognized 
Doctor  Lingard's  voice. 

Five  minutes  later  I  was  sitting  opposite  him, 
almost  knee  to  knee,  and  he  was  telling  me  how 
Miss  Emily  had  come  to  commit  her  crime.  Anne 
Bullard  was  there,  standing  on  the  hearth  rug. 
She  kept  her  eyes  on  me,  and  after  a  time  I 
realized  that  these  two  simple  people  feared  me, 


302  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

feared  for  Miss  Emily's  gentle  memory,  feared 
that  I — good  heaven! — would  make  the  thing 
public. 

"First  of  all,  Miss  Blakiston,"  said  the  doctor, 
"one  must  have  known  the  family  to  realize  the 
situation — its  pride  in  its  own  uprightness.  The 
virtue  of  the  name,  what  it  stood  for  in  Bolivar 
County.  She  was  raised  on  that.  A  Benton 
could  do  no  wrong,  because  a  Benton  would  do 
no  wrong. 

"But  there  is  another  side,  also.  I  doubt  if 
any  girl  was  ever  raised  as  Miss  Emily  was. 
She — well,  she  knew  nothing.  At  fifty  she  was 
as  childlike  and  innocent  as  she  was  at  ten.  She 
had  practically  never  heard  of  vice.  The  ugly 
things,  for  her,  did  not  exist. 

"And,  all  the  time,  there  was  a  deep  and  strong 
nature  underneath.  She  should  have  married 
and  had  children,  but  there  was  no  one  here  for 
her  to  marry.  I,"  he  smiled  faintly,  "I  asked 
for  her  myself,  and  was  forbidden  the  house  for 
years  as  a  result. 

"You  have  heard  of  the  brother?  But  of 
course  you  have.  I  know  you  have  found  the 
books.  Such  an  existence  as  the  family  life  here 
was  bound  to  have  its  reactions.  Carlo  was  a 
reaction.  Twenty-five  years  ago  he  ran  away 
with  a  girl  from  the  village.  He  did  not  marry 


THE  CONFESSION  303 

her.  I  believe  he  was  willing  at  one  time,  but  his 
father  opposed  it  violently.  It  would  have  been 
to  recognize  a  thing  he  refused  to  recognize." 
He  turned  suddenly  to  Anne.  "Don't  you  think 
this  is  going  to  be  painful  ?"  he  asked. 

"Why?     I  know  it  all." 

"Very  well.  This  girl — the  one  Carlo  ran 
away  with — determined  to  make  the  family  pay 
for  that  refusal.  She  made  them  actually  pay, 
year  by  year.  Emily  knew  about  it.  She  had 
to  pinch  to  make  the  payments.  The  father  sat 
in  a  sort  of  detached  position,  in  the  center  of 
Bolivar  County,  and  let  her  bear  the  brunt  of  it. 
I  shall  never  forget  the  day  she  learned  there  was 
a  child.  It — well,  it  sickened  her.  She  had  not 
known  about  those  things.  And  I  imagine,  if  we 
could  know,  that  that  was  the  beginning  of 
things. 

"And  all  the  time  there  was  the  necessity  for 
secrecy.  She  had  never  known  deceit,  and  now 
she  was  obliged  to  practice  it  constantly.  She 
had  no  one  to  talk  to.  Her  father,  beyond  mak 
ing  entries  of  the  amounts  paid  to  the  woman  in 
the  case,  had  nothing  to  do  with  it.  She  bore  it 
all,  year  after  year.  And  it  ate,  like  a  cancer. 

"Remember,  I  never  knew.  I,  who  would  have 
done  anything  for  her — she  never  told  me.  Carlo 
lived  hard  and  came  back  to  die.  The  father 


304 SIGHT  UNSEEN 

went.  She  nursed  them  both.  I  came  every  day, 
and  I  never  suspected.  Only,  now  and  then,  I 
wondered  about  her.  She  looked  burned.  I 
don't  know  any  other  word. 

"Then,  the  night  after  Carlo  had  been  buried, 
she  telephoned  for  me.  It  was  eleven  o'clock, 
She  met  me,  out  there  in  the  hall,  and  she  said, 
'John,  I  have  killed  somebody/ 

"I  thought  she  was  out  of  her  mind.  But  she 
opened  the  door,  and " 

He  turned  and  glanced  at  Anne. 

"Please!"  she  said. 

"It  was  Anne's  mother.  You  have  guessed  it 
about  Anne  by  now,  of  course.  It  seems  that  the 
funeral  had  taken  the  money  for  the  payment  that 
was  due,  and  there  had  been  a  threat  of  exposure. 
And  Emily  had  reached  the  breaking-point.  I 
believe  what  she  said — that  she  had  no  intention 
even  of  striking  her.  You  can't  take  the  act  itself. 
You  have  to  take  twenty-five  years  into  account. 
Anyhow,  she  picked  up  a  chair  and  knocked  the 
woman  down.  And  it  killed  her."  He  ran  his 
fingers  through  his  heavy  hair.  "It  should  not 
have  killed  her,"  he  reflected.  "There  must  have 
been  some  other  weakness,  heart  or  something. 
I  don't  know.  But  it  was  a  heavy  chair.  I  don't 
see  how  Emily " 

His  voice  trailed  off. 


THE  CONFESSION  305 

"There  we  were,"  he  said,  with  a  long  breath. 
"Poor  Emily,  and  the  other  poor  soul,  neither  of 
them  fundamentally  at  fault,  both  victims." 

"I  know  about  the  books,"  I  put  in  hastily.  I 
could  not  have  him  going  over  that  again. 

"You  knew  that,  too !"     He  gazed  at  me. 

"Poor  Emily,"  he  said.  "She  tried  to  atone. 
She  brought  Anne  here,  and  told  her  the  whole 
story.  It  was  a  bad  time — all  round.  But  at 
last  Anne  saw  the  light.  The  only  one  who  would 
not  see  the  light  was  Emily.  And  at  last  she 
hit  on  this  confession  idea.  I  suspected  it  when 
she  rented  the  house.  When  I  accused  her  of  it, 
she  said:  "I  have  given  it  to  Providence  to  de 
cide.  If  the  confession  is  found,  I  shall  know  I 
am  to  suffer.  And  I  shall  not  lift  a  hand  to  save 
myself." 

So  it  went  through  the  hours.  Her  fear,  which 
I  still  think  was  the  terror  that  communicated 
itself  to  me;  the  various  clues,  which  she,  poor 
victim,  had  overlooked;  the  articles  laid  care 
lessly  in  the  book  she  had  been  reading  and  acci 
dentally  hidden  with  her  brother's  forbidden  lit 
erature;  the  books  themselves,  with  all  of  five 
years  to  destroy  them,  and  left  untouched;  her 
own  anxiety  about  the  confession  in  the  tele 
phone-box,  which  led  to  our  finding  it;  her  es 
pionage  of  the  house  by  means  of  the  telephone; 


306  SIGHT  UNSEEN 

the  doctor's  night  visit  in  search  of  the  confes 
sion;  the  daily  penance  for  five  years  of  the  dead 
woman's  photograph  in  her  room — all  of  these — • 
and  her  occasional  weakenings,  poor  soul,  when 
she  tried  to  change  her  handwriting  against  dis 
covery,  and  refused  to  allow  the  second  telephone 
to  be  installed. 

How  clear  it  was !  How,  in  a  way,  inevitable ! 
And,  too,  how  really  best  for  her  it  had  turned 
out.  For  she  had  made  a  pact,  and  she  died  be 
lieving  that  discovery  here  had  come,  and  would 
take  the  place  of  punishment  beyond. 

Martin  Sprague  came  the  next  day.  I  was  in 
the  library  alone,  and  he  was  with  Anne  in  the 
garden,  when  Maggie  came  into  the  room  with  a 
saucer  of  crab-apple  jelly. 

"I  wish  you'd  look  at  this,"  she  said.  "If  it's 

cooked  too  much,  it  gets  tough  and "  She 

straightened  suddenly  and  stood  staring  out 
through  a  window. 

'Td  thank  you  to  look  out  and  see  the  goings- 
on  in  our  garden,"  she  said  sharply.  "In  broad 
daylight,  too.  I " 

But  I  did  not  hear  what  else  Maggie  had  to 
say.  I  glanced  out,  and  Martin  had  raised  the 
girl's  face  to  his  and  was  kissing  her,  gently  and 
very  tenderly. 


THE  CONFESSION  307 

And  then — and  again,  as  with  fear,  it  is 
hard  to  put  into  words — I  felt  come  over  me  such 
a  wave  of  contentment  and  happiness  as  made  me 
close  my  eyes  with  the  sheer  relief  and  joy  of  it. 
All  was  well.  The  past  was  past,  and  out  of  its 
mistakes  had  come  a  beautiful  thing-.  And,  like 
the  fear,  this  joy  was  not  mine.  It  came  to  me. 
I  picked  it  up — a  thought  without  words. 

Sometimes  I  think  about  it,  and  I  wonder — did 
little  Miss  Emily  know? 


THE   END 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


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